


Concatenation

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Series: Concatenation [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: (kinda), Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Awkward Flirting, Bad Puns, Banter, Body Worship, Cats, First Date, Fluff, Frottage, Good Sex, Kissing, M/M, Rimming, Sass, Switching, Wall Sex, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-01 07:35:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 88,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5197628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It’s rare that Q comes up against anything that puzzles him at all. Rarer still that he can’t quickly work through whatever barriers present themselves to resolving it. And yet people, certain people, present predicaments through which Q can’t navigate as cleanly as he can through code and number, through data and encryption. Too many variables. Too many illogical processes.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>He doesn’t know what game Bond is playing, or if he’s even playing one at all or simply defaults to flirtation. But that’s the only key that comes to mind, again and again and again:</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Q is being flirted with by 007. And what’s worse, he’s not sure that he minds it.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rootkit

“He said I have spots.”

“You don’t.”

Q raises a hand to his cheek anyway, frowning past his screen. He watches the door for another dismal moment more before turning his hand, seeking along his jaw with the backs of his fingers instead. It had been as terse a meeting as he expected, wherein he was of course summarily dismissed by the older - _much_ older - Bond who’d merely snorted when Q raised his own capabilities in response.

Pajamas are fine if one doesn’t need compensate for shortcomings with expensive suits.

And he doesn’t have spots.

He turns in his chair, long legs crossed at the knees, and watches the clock. Bond is late, of course, to no one’s particular surprise. Beside Q, a fellow of the Division clatters at his keys. Q lifts his hand again and the other man sighs.

“Your skin is fine, quartermaster,” he says. “He was just being a prat.”

“Field agents are all the same,” Q murmurs. “Jumped-up military with big egos and a lack of self-preservation. As if anyone, given time, couldn’t learn to shoot a gun. It isn’t science, it’s squeezing a trigger. They’re all intoxicated by the glamor of it, fancying themselves modern-day Beowulfs. As if merely being bumped up to intelligence work means they’ve got any of it.”

“Some of us shoulder our way in,” comes a voice from behind him and Q stiffens in his seat, catching himself against the table so as not to spin around just yet. “Brutes that we are.”

Bond takes the few steps needed to get to the main operating floor and adjusts his cufflinks absently. He barely spares a glance to the men working here, perhaps because few of them spare a glance his way. It’s all reciprocal really. Agents could care less for the shit talked about them as long as the team talking has enough brains between them to keep them alive. Those in the Division could care less for agents, because they see them as little more than wasteful and angry and far too pleased with themselves.

In fairness, and to Bond’s amusement, he has yet to see an unattractive agent sent into the field. Perhaps it’s part of the job, to be charming. Perhaps England really is as proud and shallow as some think she is.

Allowing a heartbeat more to close his eyes and find his breath, Q finally turns and stands, a fluid motion.

“You’re late.”

“Right on time, I think.”

“Nearly ten minutes past -”

“Right on time to hear your earnest thoughts on me,” Bond clarifies, and as his smile widens, Q’s eyes narrow.

He clears his throat, but it does little to alleviate the sticky sensation within, nor does it ease the ruddy blush he can feel hot beneath his eyes. “Our opinions of the other, personally, are irrelevant,” Q tells him, not unkindly, running his hands down his striped sweater to smooth it before circling the desk. “I’m certain that in a professional capacity, we’ll be able to accomplish a great deal together. Come this way.”

He doesn’t leave time to argue. He doesn’t leave time for himself to apologize. He doesn’t leave time to take in the agent’s unfairly attractive features again, considering he’s already brooded over them for days. Instead, Q’s heels click snap-quick against the floor as he leaves behind the main office and makes his way further into the Division.

Bond’s steps follow at a slower pace, but he seems to always keep up. It’s infuriating, like an older sibling following with larger strides just to prove they can. To his credit, though, he says not a word until Q leads them to the open room filled with the equipment they had all been working on, for Bond and others.

“Have you had a relationship with agents before?” 007 asks after a while, content to keep his smile thin and suggestive without tilting his words towards the inclination of crude. The meaning is clear enough, the tease and bait just the same.

“I’m familiar with every field agent currently active,” Q responds. “We work intimately alongside -”

He pauses.

“Intimately alongside them,” he attempts again, with another pause. “On any mission where we might have a tool -”

Oh, bollocks.

“A tool that could be of service.”

Bond’s subtle smile adds punctuation to the end of the realization that finally settles in past scripted response. Q’s cheeks grow hot once more and he could curse for it. If he does have spots, they’ll surely be more obvious now. He parts his lips with his tongue and turns on the workshop’s lights, halogens heating with flickers of brightness overhead. If it’s a joke about their back and forth, it’s at Q’s expense, and it isn’t funny. If it’s a joke about his being queer, it’s even more at Q’s expense, and still isn’t funny. Or he’s simply teasing, and -

Resentment tangles with a warmth to which Q will not give a name, clearing his throat again, a nervous tic. “I can show you what we’ve been working on, or if there’s something in particular you need -”

“Oh, I would hardly be qualified to dictate to you what I need on a job, Q,” James replies, and the tone, to Q’s surprise, is aimed at himself, not the little engineer in front of him. There is a warmth in his eyes that wasn’t there before and Q resists the urge to clear his throat again. “I suppose since exploding pens are no longer something the Q Division goes for anymore, I couldn’t ask for one of them." Bond straightens his shoulders and keeps his hands in his pockets, feet set just past shoulder-width apart, chin raised, chest forward. If Q didn’t know any better, he would say the man is peacocking.

Q indulges him - and himself, if he’s being honest - with a single look, brisk enough that it could be interpreted as appraisal.

It is that in some sense, anyway.

“We’ve refined,” he answers, with no small amount of pride in the tilt of his head. “Long past are the days of bladed tea-trays and radioactive lint. A clever idea in spirit, but radioactivity is a two-way street, and we needn’t have our agents at risk from our materials when they’re already facing down certain -”

Bond lifts a brow.

“Near-certain death,” Q allows, with a gracious smile. He turns toward a table, seeking with quick fingers over circuit-boards and soldering irons, disassembled guns and bits and pieces of things that Bond can’t begin to make heads nor tails of.

“Ah! Here.” The quartermaster turns to him and unfurls a roll of cloth, black, eyes bright with pride. “Do you know what this is?”

Bond blinks at him. It is clear enough the question is meant to be answered wrongly, clear enough that Q expects him not to know. And in truth, what can a man do to impress another than be utterly predictable for a change?

“Does it, by chance, make one invisible?” He responds dryly. “I could certainly use one if that’s the case.”

Q’s lips part and for a moment he’s stunned to silence. Damn 007. Damn him to _hell_.

“Perhaps I’m meant for intelligence after all,” Bond muses, as Q attempts to recover. Attempts to gain his ground again. Attempts not to feel a tugging intrigue towards the agent in his charge, blessedly - infuriatingly - cleverer than most.

“We’re working on it,” he assures him. “There’s been developments in materials made of nanoantennas, that depending on the light’s phase and the position of the one viewing it, can blend an unmoving object to its backdrop. It works, but only in certain contexts. Not especially helpful for what you do. But this,” he says, giving the cloth a shake. “Infrared can’t see you beneath it. That goes for cameras, drones, anything attempting to pick up a heat signature. You’re there, and then you’re gone.”

Bond’s smile widens a little more, and Q grins, lip between his teeth.

“It gets better,” he whispers. “CCTV is a pain the arse, excuse my language, but we’ve managed a way to create enough local interference, untraceable so long as you’re not loitering too long, that disables them,” he says, snapping his fingers, “whenever you’re within a certain radius.”

“I would expect nothing less from England’s finest,” James replies, and his stance eases, less imposing and more open. He steps closer, the distance between them still respectable and entirely appropriate, but Q feels as though the air is pushed from his lungs by that one motion alone.

“Have you tried it?”

Q blinks. “It’s been tested.”

Bond just smiles, slow and deliberate, and tilts his head. “I wonder,” he says. “Where someone like you could sneak off to, invisible and silent as you would be.”

All the intercessions that come to mind - that it needs further experimentation outside of the lab, that it would need to be sewn into a garment to pass without notice, on and on - fade into a static hiss of not-thought that reminds Q of how the cameras fizzle when the material is near them. He blinks, fingers curling in the sleek fabric as he holds it closer to his chest.

It’s rare that Q comes up against anything that puzzles him at all. Rarer still that he can’t quickly work through whatever barriers present themselves to resolving it. And yet people, certain people, present predicaments through which Q can’t navigate as cleanly as he can through code and number, through data and encryption. Too many variables. Too many illogical processes.

He doesn’t know what game Bond is playing, or if he’s even playing one at all or simply defaults to flirtation. But that’s the only key that comes to mind, again and again and again:

Q is being flirted with by 007. And what’s worse, he’s not sure that he minds it.

“I suppose,” he finally says, as his thoughts whirr back to speed, “that depends on what I would be doing.”

“Enlighten me,” Bond replies, gesturing to a seat and taking it only when Q nods - a good move, in retrospect, considering the contents of this entire room. “I could use some ideas.” His eyes narrow, his smile tilts. “The stranger the better. It would be awful to be predictable to an enemy, no?”

Q clears his throat, and with careful movements - strangely tender - begins to roll the fabric away again. “007,” he says, “forgive my saying so, but I’m hardly the one with whom you should speak about tactical maneuvers. I work in technology. I work in engineering. And I’m certain that there are others far more qualified to assist you in ‘making moves’.”

He sets the fabric aside, a hand on his hip, the other against the table.

“Furthermore,” Q adds, straightening his shoulders, “if I am truly, rather than incidentally, the one you’ve sought out for such things, you’re in much worse shape than I imagined.”

“Perhaps you’re the one to get me into shape,” Bond replies, not even a hesitation, not even a moment to consider the rejection as exactly what it is meant to be. Cocky, confident, too sure of himself. It is as infuriating as it is enchanting and Bond knows it, damn him, he bloody knows. “It would do well to keep both my mind and my body limber, don’t you think?”

Q swallows back a sound that he can feel build up inside him. He’s only human, much as he’d prefer to be less so, and rarely approached with such forwardness. His blood feels hotter for it, heart skipping to pulse faster. It’s been years since he’s even let himself consider the possibility of what Bond suggests, and never once has he let anything so base sway him to consider it about anyone at MI6.

It’s unfair that it has to well up in him now, like this. And it’s more unfair that he’s certain Bond rarely has to do anything more than smirk a few innuendos to get his way.

And so he will not. Not from Q, at any rate.

“Do you recall what I said when we met upstairs?” Q asks.

The agent tilts his head a little. “That I’m a jumped-up soldier with aspirations of being Beowulf?”

“That I look forward to working with in a professional capacity,” Q says, with a wan smile. He steps past the agent and towards the door. “Now pay attention, 007, and I’ll show you where you can stay limber. The gym is just down this hall.”

\---

“It is quite the trust exercise, isn’t it?”

Q sighs, eyes towards the ceiling as he adjusts his earpiece and slightly tilts the microphone.

“What is?”

“I’m letting you guide me through a labyrinth without the slightest clue where you could lead me. Trusting you will not lead me astray.”

“It is hardly a labyrinth, 007, you’re walking through the Turkish market.”

“Must you kill every fantasy, Q?” Bond replies, and Q can hear the smile in it, even with the soft hum of voices around him. “Which way?”

Q considers the screen in front of him, occupying the entire wall of a private room at headquarters, commandeered to cut out distractions. The rest of the Division is just outside his soundproof door, nearby if he needs them, but for now he and the agent are - though many kilometers apart - alone. The market bustles in satisfyingly clear view before him, from a minute camera set into a button of Bond’s shirt.

Sometimes the old tricks work just fine.

“Left,” Q says, scrolling through the laptop set beside him. “Just ahead at the rug dealer.”

“It’s a market full of rugs.”

“And only one in front of you,” he responds. “Do try and keep up, 007.”

The image on screen stops moving forward for a moment and Q frowns. Before him is the stall he had told Bond to take a left at and yet he doesn’t move. Not left or right or anywhere at all.

“007.”

“This almost feels like a date, doesn’t it?” Comes the drawled reply. “You and I, walking through a crowded and foreign place, looking for rugs.”

“Left, 007, at the stall.” The image begins to move again and to Q’s relief, Bond takes the left as indicated. “You will come upon the spices soon -”

“I believe I have olfactorily, already.”

“- and take another left,” Q finishes, exasperated. “The farther we can get you into the swirl and life of this place, the harder you will be to track.”

“For you?”

“For anyone other than me.”

“Always watching,” Bond hums, turning to take two side steps as he passes a mirror stall, his reflection smiling in one of the larger items before he continues as before. “Quite the voyeuristic job, isn’t it?”

“You can sleep easy, 007, that the moment that button comes undone, I’m off.”

“As in -”

“Disconnected,” clarifies Q, careful to keep his smile trained away lest it creep into his voice. He pushes his laptop in front of him and folds his arms to the table, resting his chin on them and watching the market pass by. Despite himself, he looks for another reflection, another mirror or pane of glass. He swears that Bond slows a little by each. “Now, get the beacon handy. You’re going to be coming up on them soon. I’m going to assume you reviewed the documentation I sent to you last night so you know who you’re looking for.”

“The light bedtime reading you sent me? You’ve quite a sense of humor, Q, sending me novels,” Bond replies, just - Q is sure - to hear Q hum his utter displeasure at the thought that his long-researched information was not looked at, let alone read. Before the button, Bond’s hand shifts as he works elegant fingers over the little device Q had given him. Over and over, almost meditative, and entirely deliberate.

It’s almost bloody hypnotizing, damn him.

“I see him,” Bond murmurs, before the camera turns quickly to face another stall, one filled with jewelry and heavy stones. The beacon disappears as though it never was, palmed expertly to his pocket or up his sleeve, and instead, Bond seeks out against the merchandise on display. The act is simple enough, the man they’re seeking is suspicious without Bond marching in all bravado and confidence, but the movement is utterly distracting for Q; veined hands and long fingers touching one item or another, rough Turkish filtering through the microphone Bond wears.

Whatever he’s saying, he’s even managing to charm the damn stallholder, and Q can’t help but smile.

“What is that?” He asks, when James takes up a heavy necklace, three large beads of malachite heavy on a leather strap.

“A gift,” Bond says, holding up the thing for Q to see before it, too, is palmed carefully away and the agent returns to the work at hand. Q sighs and covers the microphone so the hiss doesn’t distract the man in the market. He wonders which faceless and nameless woman he will give that to, how nicely it will sit against her throat, and how soon it will be removed when those same damn careful hands slip it off with the rest of her meagre clothing.

“For you, darling, to commemorate our first date in the market together.”

“What -”

What did you just call me? What possesses you to declare this a date? What on Earth have I done to convey that we’d go rug shopping together?

“- makes you think green is even my color?” Q asks, inhaling sharply as he murmurs the least of all terrible responses into the headset.

There’s a few moments of quiet between them as the beacon sends a signal to Q’s computer, marking coordinates in a steady pulse. So deployed, he listens to the broken Turkish as Bond barters with the merchant, before agreeing to a price that seems far too steep even still. Within a few minutes, at most, Bond is swept away again into the steadily shifting crowd, dizzying on the screen in a wash of colors and patterns, bright sun shining off dusty ground.

“Your eyes,” Bond says.

“My eyes?”

“Pale, jade green. A darker shade would bring out the light in them, even from behind your glasses.”

He can hear Bond laugh when Q makes a sound in his throat, the quartermaster’s smile wide now, so much so that he hides it behind his hand and tries to rub away the ache in his cheeks. “Pay attention, 007,” he finally sighs, “and we’ll get you out of there.”

“But we’ve not even picked out a rug yet.”

“No rugs,” Q tells him. “The cats would be sick on it anyway.”

“Bollocks,” Bond sighs, and Q feels his brows furrow as he waits for an explanation. “I hate bloody cats.”

\---

It is far too late in the evening for anyone to be around the headquarters, yet, predictably, most of Q branch and several agents mill around the old bunker. Cheap coffee and recycled air, too many tired bodies in too small a space, and Bond has to remind himself that he is here for a reason, dressed to the bloody nines on an evening he has no work whatsoever.

He lets his shoes click on the metal grating beneath them as he makes his way through one department and another, some still lit where one or two people perch, working, others dark for the night until the ungodly hours that these people start their shifts again. Down the stairs and over a suspended bridge, then more stairs again.

He isn’t in the large open-plan room filled with things that are as dangerous as they are seemingly normal. He isn’t before the enormous screens broadcasting maps and beacon locations and lines upon lines of code. He isn’t anywhere, it seems, and Bond allows his lips to draw back in a silent snarl before he takes a right and tries for the private offices.

Empty. Empty. Empty. M’s office, blessedly dark, that Bond passes by at a quicker clip. Empty. Light.

His eyes narrow.

An attempt to pay this visit at home was met with a shuttered house, a few lights left on for the younger man’s cats, but no one in beyond them. It was a risk going there at all, Bond knows, considering that other employees’ personal information is meant to be off-limits to all but the highest clearances. It’s risky for all involved to know so much about another. Hell, he doesn’t even know Q’s name.

The thought does little to slow his steps, nor restrain the brisk knock on the door, or the immediate opening that follows.

Sprawled long across a leather sofa, Q lifts his eyes, glasses reflecting his screen brightly back. His shoes are on the floor, striped socks garish green and violet disappearing up skinny legs beneath soft trousers. He’s shed his office-wear in favor of a hooded sweatshirt, half-undone above an undershirt. With a lifted brow, Q slips off one side of his headphones, his voice holding a tenor somewhere between annoyance and alarm.

“007,” he says. “What’s happened?”

Bond just watches him, confused, for a moment, in seeing him so domestic and comfortable in a place that is anything but. His hair is mussed, perhaps from running his hands through it all day, perhaps from how he had yanked his hoodie over his head in a rush to leave behind the grandpa sweaters and drab colors of his work day.

What’s happened? He’s somehow become even more bloody wonderful since the last time James saw him.

“What?” Q repeats, tone already falling into that territory of displeased parent, as Bond says nothing but closes the door and steps closer. Q sets his laptop to the floor. “If you’ve come here to tell me you’ve broken another of my ten-thousand-pound lasers, Bond, I’ll -”

He doesn’t quite get to finish the threat, because warm lips meet his own and demanding hands hold his face still and everything stops making sense.

“What, huh?” James asks, pulling away, dragging Q with him, breathless and close enough still to feel the soft panting breaths against his lips. “You’ll what?”

Q makes a little sound, settling back to his heels as the room spins and his stomach plummets, so dizzy that he’s unconvinced he hasn’t just imagined what happened. What is happening.

This.

Bond.

Bond with hands on his cheeks and Bond who heated Q’s mouth with his own in a furious kiss and Bond who keeps him close, finally, after a month of -

“Have - have another made,” he finally says, almost laughing, brows furrowed as he’s pulled forward, closer, forced to bring his hands up to steady himself. Long fingers splay fluttering against Bond’s jacket, unable to meet his eyes even as he’s held firmly in place. “I’ll have another made, if you’ve gone and - gone and done this, why, 007, why in the hell have you gone and done this?”

“For all your bloody genius you ask me that,” James mutters, stroking a hand through Q’s unruly hair before gently snaring it. “Because you, infuriating and tempting thing that you are, have me so distracted I find myself wandering the halls of new MI6 at some unconscionable hour -”

“It’s only eight in the evening,” Q murmurs.

“- trying to find you so I can shut you up for a change.”

“I wasn’t - we’ve not spoken all day,” Q manages before their lips ensnare again, and he can’t find the strength to protest more. He can hardly find the strength to stand, knees weak as their kiss slides smoothly, fiercely swift together. He slips his arms around Bond’s shoulders, curling them around his neck, and laughs when Bond catches him by the backs of his thighs to hoist him from the floor. His headphone cord tugs taut and they slip from his head to the floor with a clatter.

Q hooks his heels against Bond’s legs to keep from falling, though the strength of the agent is enough to twist hot in his stomach as he’s turned to the wall and pressed firm. A moan erupts before Bond’s kiss steals it again, and Q arches, needy, so bloody needy that he trembles, panting between their mouths. “There’s cameras here, everywhere, they’ll have us for fraternizing -”

“If that was a rule they genuinely enforced,” Bond murmurs, “I would have long ago lost my job, Q.” The comment is ridiculously casual yet there is no preening behind the words, no pride to fuel them to something worth presenting. They are merely words, merely facts that Q had been well aware of before he had even entertained the thoughts and fantasies that had found him awake most nights thinking of this and more.

Another kiss but gentler, exploring, now, as soft hums and gentle touches bring smiles to both their faces enough that for a moment they have to part not only to breathe but gather themselves.

“Do you know,” James comments, “you are the most stubborn creature I have ever met. Did you deliberately ignore this for the month, a month, Q, that we have been working together?”

Q shakes his head, hair spilling into his face, glasses slipping down his nose. “No, 007,” he answers. “No, I’ve not ignored it. How could I? When you strut around and lean on things and - and dates in the bazaar and -”

His throat clicks when he swallows and he leans close, lips parting against Bond’s throat. He closes a kiss there, lingering, tasting clean, warm skin and breathing in his aftershave. This alone has occupied more hours of his mind than he would care to admit, Bond’s pulse against his lips, his scruffy cheek rubbing rough against Q’s smooth skin. A sigh pushes from him when he twists his body to bring their hips together, to let his agent feel how very interested he is.

“Every bloody night since the art museum,” Q confesses, resting his head back against the wall as he tightens his legs and grinds slow against Bond again. “Every night, 007, you’ve kept me awake.” His breath hitches when he feels his agent’s cock tuck stiff into the hollow of his thigh. “It’s about damned time you have to work for something you want.”

A laugh, warm, and then softer hands, softer kisses, needier rutting that pushes Q higher up the wall, that has one of his hands seeking back to slap against it trying to keep his balance. For a while, all they do is touch, explore, slowly learn the dimensions of the other that they had only ever imagined alone at night, hands between their legs and groaning in frustration.

Bond is a surprisingly gentle lover, for all the harsh words Q had thrown his way and thought while glaring at his screens. He is careful where his hands go, he takes note of responses and - for the moment, at least - avoids tickling. He holds Q as though he weighs nothing at all and that, truly, is what makes Q shiver in delight every time he lets his mind think that far.

James’ hand settles against Q’s on the wall and he kisses his chin, down his throat, over his bobbing Adam’s apple and to the hollow of his collarbone.

“Dinner?” Bond asks.

“The least you can do.”

“Tomorrow night, then.”

“I suppose.”

“Q.”

“What?”

Bond’s smile spreads across his mouth, narrows his eyes, shows just the barest white of his teeth before his lips press together again.

“Stop being such a cock about this.”

Q laughs, a sound that Bond’s never heard from the little engineer before, high and brisk behind the hand with which he tries to stop it. He leans off the wall and into Bond’s arms, kissing his lower lip, sucking it softly, holding it between his teeth and releasing with a ruddy-cheeked moan as Bond drives in stiff thrusts against him.

“In truth, 007, I can’t think of much else beyond -”

“Say it,” purrs Bond, catching Q’s ear between his lips to make him moan again.

“Beyond your cock,” laughs Q again. “Dinner, fine. Dinner. We’ll have -”

“And after?”

“This,” he relents, with a shudder and a little sound. “Please, Bond, this”

They find a steady rhythm, sliding together, bunching fabric, agent and quartermaster rutting rough and impatient. Q’s arms twitch tighter around Bond’s neck; he clutches to him as if they’ll both fall from the peak they approach with hitched breaths and rising moans. Were anyone to walk by, they wouldn’t need surveillance footage to know what was happening, let alone as their voices snare higher together, let alone as a clumsy kiss mashes their groans into a tangle of tongues and lips and spit and need and Q’s hands in Bond’s hair and Bond’s hands on Q’s ass.

Q breaks first, with a wide-eyed gasp and a rush of scarlet across his cheeks. His hips twitch erratic, wet heat dripping down his groin and soaking into his trousers. A kiss pins him again as wave after wave of relief too long kept from him floods him to the point of trembling, long legs clambering to hold their bodies together.

The agent holds him true, not a waver in his strength even when he loses himself to this as well. Messy and clumsy, like two teenagers on a date for the first time. This is hardly James’ first rodeo and yet it feels entirely different from the trysts he has had before, with men or women, all beautiful, all interesting enough for a good night and a good fuck, a good beard, once in a while, to get where he needed to go but this…

Q.

Q is an entirely different matter.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to spend all evening working here,” he murmurs, nosing alongside Q’s nose until the other smiles wider, almost childish in his delight.

“I can’t very well, now,” he murmurs, rueful and shy all at once. “My trousers need washing.”

He seeks another kiss, nuzzling near to feel their lips touch again and hold, calmer now but no less curious. The simple, strangely sweet affection is returned warmly, and lingers even as Bond lowers Q carefully down to stand again, unsteady. He grasps his agent’s lapels in careful hands, suddenly far less fearful of what finally erupted between them and instead that it may have only been a tryst to resolve their tension.

“Is that the only reason?” Bond asks, brow lifting, and it’s enough that Q’s worry eases a little, and he grins, sheepish.

“I suppose it could wait until morning,” the quartermaster allows, relaxing enough to adjust his skewed glasses back into place. Wide eyes flicker to meet the gaze of 007, and he manages a smile, small but genuine. “If I had sufficient reason to put it off.”

“Does a nightcap and a good night’s rest suffice as good enough reason?”

“Hardly.”

“Tough.”

Q smiles, and James tilts his head, just watching him. The tension has eased from them both, but it’s hardly made the tingling delight of seeing the other so near disappear. It’s a relief, truthfully, James has had enough people in his life come and go and matter only for the pleasure between his legs. Q is far more interesting than that. He’s glad that his own daft mind can understand that.

“And don’t take your bloody computer,” Bond murmurs, touching just beneath Q’s chin to lift it before he kisses him again, just once, chaste, against the lips. “If you want to stay up all night I am more than willing to oblige.”

Q tilts his head a little, accepting another kiss to his cheek, another to his hair, and with an easy twist, steps past Bond and turns to face him. A challenging smile purses his lips as he bends, clicks the laptop closed, and holds it against his chest.

“I’ll agree to everything but that,” he says. “After all, someone’s got to pull that footage before it gets to M.”


	2. Pentest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“And I know you always set the camera just so, 007. You’re not as clever as you think, arranging your lapels in such a way that you simply happen to have them pointing towards where you undress.”_
> 
> _Bond tilts Q’s head aside, nosing against his hairline, lips parted against his temple. “You noticed.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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“You’ll have to forgive me -”

“I’ve already agreed to forgive you no less than five times, and we’ve only just reached the doorstep. What for this time?”

Q turns a dry look to Bond at his side, seeking in his pockets for his keys. “I don’t often have company.”

“But you do occasionally?”

“No.”

Finally Q produces the small set, joined by a little device that looks rather like the button to open a garage door. He presses a button and a key pops out like a switchblade. Then another, and another. Three locks in total and Bond is glad he didn’t try to seek for his quartermaster inside the house. He can’t begin to imagine -

Well, he doesn’t have to, watching Q enter and begin a devilishly complex set of movements to shut off the alarms therein. The lights turn on with the last button pressed, and Q steps back to allow Bond inside, stepping out of his brogues.

“Shoes by the door, please. I prefer not to have all of London tracked inside.”

Bond snorts but obeys, toeing off his shoes and unwinding his scarf to hang on the coat hook, his coat atop. He closes the door with a quiet click and the alarm beeps softly to suggest the lock had been registered by the system. It’s a sizeable house, certainly for one person. Comfortably away from the city enough to be quiet outside, two stories with a second-floor balcony overlooking the living room. Old-fashioned, in some ways. Quaint, with its exposed brick and wood.

It reminds Bond of the grandfatherly sweaters Q favors so much.

“You know, I have imagined that you would wander around in your socks and little else,” James calls. He can hear Q moving around further in the house, turning on soft lights in the living room and kitchen. He opens his mouth to say more but something brushes past his leg and immediately his sidearm is in his hand and the barrel aimed at -

“Oh for god’s sake.”

The cat is large, a dappled grey and brown with yellow eyes. The tail coils behind and above it like smoke, and it opens its mouth just wide enough to make a small squeaking sound of delight. James narrows his eyes and doesn’t sheathe his weapon. He does flick on the safety though.

“Do you prefer scotch, gin, or - 007!” Q’s eyes go wide, a bottle in each hand. “Holster your weapon, immediately.” The snap of his voice is enough that James does as told, and the demand carries down through the stiff steps of his quartermaster. “What in the hell is wrong with you?”

“Reflex,” he says, but Q is hardly mollified by the answer. He crouches and sets both liquor bottles to the floor, scooping up the fluffy beast who squeaks in response.

“A very rude way to make introduction, 007. No firearms in the house,” he says, but his tongue parts his lips and he sighs. “No firearms drawn - hell, no firearms pointed at the cats.”

“More than one,” Bond confirms, dutifully unbuckling his holster.

“More than one. This is Desmond, and Peter is likely asleep on the bed.”

James makes a sound, a displeased little thing, but he hangs up his holster dutifully, keeps none of his guns on him. Q’s security is enough to calm his usually jangled nerves regarding staying in a place he doesn’t know, but the cats…

Those will be problematic.

Especially in bed.

“Desmond,” he repeats, and Q looks up from comforting the inordinately fluffy creature that now purrs in his arms to nod. “Of course you would give them… unusual names.”

“Desmond is hardly exotic.”

“Would Fluffy not have sufficed?”

“Hardly,” snorts Q, allowing the cat his freedom again, more than a little pleased when he rubs between Bond’s ankles. “It’s so patronizing. Fluffy. Whiskers. Tiger,” he says, eyes rolling as he ducks to take up the bottles again.

“No,” the agent says, shifting his weight, eyes narrowing a little when Desmond follows. “Better to give them human names, because they’re clearly -”

“British. They are British toms with proper British names. To call them anything less would be dismissive, Bond, do try and keep up. Scotch, or gin?”

“Is ‘both’ an option?” He mutters.

“Don’t be so dramatic, he’s just a cat,” Q snorts, choosing for him, and returning the gin to the cupboard so he can pour them both a scotch. Bond follows carefully, more scared that he will do damage to the furry monster at his feet than looking at all dignified. It would hardly do to upset his host by damaging the cat.

A cat.

Two cats.

Christ.

“You know, I thought you were joking when you told me you had cats.”

“When?”

“On our first date,” Bond smiles. “I hardly took you for a man who needed the silent pompous company.”

Q hums, his nerves settling into a smile as he hands Bond his glass. “It helped to fill the quiet when our connection was down. Replacing your stiff grunts of annoyance with purring, instead.”

“You’ve not yet heard me purr.”

“I’ve yet to properly pet you,” Q says, lifting his glass in toast before taking a small sip. He sucks it from his bottom lip with a pleased sound, nose wrinkling a little. “Or perhaps I’ve simply a fondness for predators that pass as housepets.”

“Charmer,” Bond laughs, moving to lean against the counter, watching Q as he moves around his house. He is nervous, like a little bird, taking up newspapers or books to put them aside, as though the house is a tip - it isn’t - and as though Bond will judge him for it. “What are you doing?”

“Tidying,” Q answers, scotch in one hand and a handful of magazines in the other, all under different names. He drops them to the bin and presses on, as Bond watches, unable to help imagining him in only his striped socks.

“Why, Q?”

“Because I’ve company.”

“You’ve me,” Bond says. “And if you’re going to regard me as a guest, I feel it my duty to let you know I’m feeling a particular lack of hospitality.”

Q stops, a moment, and tries to still the fluttering of his heart. He’s nervous. He’s terribly nervous that whatever delusions Bond - James - has had about him will fade, the scales falling from his eyes when he sees Q as he is.

Altogether ordinary, in most ways but for his work. Quiet and introverted, chronically awkward when not discussing intangible details of security work or machine learning or mechanical engineering. A man who hasn’t had a partner since university, wherefrom he was plucked for the Service. A man who lives alone in a house too big for him and his two cats.

His throat clicks when he swallows, in turn pushing down the urge to tell his agent the truth.

That he wants James to like him. Not even Bond, not 007 - but James.

“It seems my moment of charm has passed,” Q manages, smile twitching wider, fading, as he takes another sip and forces himself to return. He recalls that his pants are still dirtied, stiff now from their swift and clumsy consummation. He shifts his weight to try to alleviate all the sensations tangling in his stomach. “Forgive me.”

Bond catches him gently by the arm as he comes near and presses their cheeks together, just holding close. Twining through their legs, Desmond weaves purring and squeaking between them.

“Q.” It’s almost a warning, that same tone the agent takes on when he’s in a fix and the engineer has little advice for him but a softly murmured curse word.

“007.”

“Hmm.”

“Bond.”

“Better.” A kiss to his cheek and the agent pulls back just enough to see him. “You truly have no idea how charming you are, do you? You don’t play at it, you genuinely have no idea.”

Q’s breath leaves him in something like a laugh, and he turns his eyes away, adjusting his glasses. Bond watches rapt as warmth lights his cheeks again, over the bridge of his nose. “Shall I be honest?” Q asks.

“Please.”

“I think you’re absolutely full of shit,” laughs Q, closing his eyes as he tilts towards the older man, nuzzling once alongside his nose. “I think we’re symptomatic of the Theban Band, thrown into dire straits together, reliant on the other for not only our own well-being but that of our country herself. And I think it’s filled you with delusion as to who I am, and that gratitude for my skill has built into more under duress.”

“Now who’s full of shit,” Bond murmurs, smiling against the sleepy man before him. It’s truly charming that he’s so nervous, truly endearing that he considers himself to be what Bond had once perceived of him. He supposes building the man’s confidence would hardly be frowned upon.

“Shall I be honest?”

“No.”

“I need a shower,” James tells him. “But, I am happy to be the gentleman and wait for you to take one first.”

Q draws a breath, the peaty warmth of scotch between them, so close that he swears he can taste it just in their nearness, mouths hovering close. He bites his bottom lip and releases it with a smile, eyes drawing up a little as he does.

“May I be less of a gentleman?” Q asks, seeking a brush of eye contact above his glasses.

Bond’s smile spreads, and he brings the backs of his fingers to Q’s cheek in a chaste touch. “I wish you would.”

“We might save time for us both by going together.” A pause, and a laugh, as Q adds, “Once I feed the cats.”

“But of course.” James lets him go, reaching for his glass to take another deliberate sip as Q walks past him and around to the kitchen to get the bowls to feed his animals. From upstairs comes not a sound at all but moments later a shadow streaks past Bond’s legs and up to paw against Q’s, the cat stretching long, tail coiled and entirely pitch black.

“Peter?” Bond asks.

“Peter,” Q confirms, bending to stroke the creature behind the ears. This cat is much more vocal, a slinky thing that Bond is sure he will meet in a dark corridor fairly soon without lights to guide him and find himself tripping over the deliberately placed feline frame.

Bloody cats.

Q speaks to them both in turn, in this way lacking the self-consciousness that gripped him stiff mere moments before. Tidy bowls are filled with tidy dollops of food, and Q crouches beside them, giving each a pat as they rub against him on their way to eat. He’s gentle with them, even tender. Bloody cats they may be, but Q’s affection for them is evident, despite how it tugs at something uncomfortable in Bond that they’ve been his only company here for as long as he’s intimated.

He stands tall again once both cats are in their bowls, stretching a little, from side to side, before returning to Bond who stands in amused observation.

“Do they ever answer you?” He asks, pushing off the counter to follow his quartermaster as he passes by.

“In their own way. Communication styles vary, between computers and their languages, between animals and people.”

“Between people themselves,” Bond suggests, allowing Q to ascend the stairs ahead of him, not only to maintain a facade of gentlemanly allowance but to help himself to the view on the way.

“Yes,” Q says, turning quickly enough to catch Bond staring. He smiles, genuinely pleased by this, and continues up, fingers trailing the bannister. “Do you live in London?”

“You don’t know where I live?”

“I’m pretending not to know,” Q grins, “for the sake of discovering our methods of communication.”

With an amused hum, Bond follows several steps behind. “I have a flat in London,” he says, “now that it’s been restored to me after my almost-death. I have houses elsewhere.”

“Where?”

“Elsewhere,” Bond repeats, infuriating in his lack of elaboration. Perhaps someday. Perhaps never. Those homes are kept, known by MI6 of course, but kept for his own. He doesn’t work there. He rests there, when he has a moment of peace to do so. “I spend most of my time in London.”

“Dreadful city.”

“Is it?”

“Noisy and dirty and loud,” Q confirms, leading them on through to the bedroom - tidy, well-appointed in dark wood and light wallpaper in an inoffensive pattern. “It reminds me of work, so that’s all I do there.”

The bathroom is rather large, in relation to the room, but hardly enough to be called lavish. The tub is fairly new, the shower above has settings on it that James is fairly sure Q has never used since the moment he moved in. There is a heavy towel on the rack, a face cloth hanging just out of the sink. Soap, toothbrush and toothpaste, some cologne and other common household things scatter the space. He catches Q before he can go to clean it up.

“Why here?” He asks softly.

“Because there’s things all over the counter,” Q protests, before his cheek is softly caught by calloused fingers and he’s turned to face his agent again.

“I don’t care about the bloody cologne on the counter, Q, why this house? Why so far from the city?”

“It’s not that far -”

“You’re being difficult.”

“Stubborn, I’m told. Horrendously stubborn and bull-headed, per M, on my last quarterly review,” he sighs, with a brisk shake of his head to clear the flurry of words. It has the added benefit of pressing his cheek to Bond’s palm, and he turns his lips to it to kiss, just a soft push of lips, held long enough that both can feel it. “I grew up here.”

“In this house?”

“A block away,” Q says. “In this neighborhood. I’ll be paying off the mortgage until the end of days, but I wanted -” He stops, holding his bottom lip between his teeth and releasing it with a puff of breath. “With everything that we do, all that’s on the line and all the stress that comes with it, I wanted to feel as though I was coming home again at the end of a shift. Somewhere quiet. Familiar. The commute gives me time to clear my head. The neighbors still remember me. I told them I work in finance,” he smiles, eyes closing as his glasses skew with another soft turn into Bond’s hand. “They’re very proud.”

The agent smiles, he can’t help it, and reaches with his other hand to carefully pull the glasses from Q’s nose, folding them and setting them aside. He looks so much younger without them, entirely vulnerable, and he avoids eye contact with every shift and turn of his lovely head until Bond kisses him, just softly, just once.

“Are you going to have me undress you too?” He murmurs.

“Am I still being honest?” Q ventures, suddenly brave, and without nearly enough scotch to justify it, but the lingering liquor-burn on his lips is reason enough to allow his boldness. Bond’s fingers thread through his hair and curl, enough to tug, and Q sighs soft acceptance of this answer. “I see you so often, always from a distance, dressed in fine suits or tuxedos,” he says, fingers settling to his agent’s chest. “And shamefully often I’ve considered how it might feel to remove them from you, stitch by stitch.”

“Just as I’ve envisioned stripping you of those sweaters,” Bond allows, amusement deepening his voice.

“And I know you always set the camera just so, 007. You’re not as clever as you think, arranging your lapels in such a way that you simply happen to have them pointing towards where you undress.”

Bond tilts Q’s head aside, nosing against his hairline, lips parted against his temple. “You noticed.”

“I watched,” confesses Q. He slips loose the button highest against his agent’s throat, shivering a soft sigh. “And imagined.”

The thought is delightful. In truth, the first few times the camera placement was entirely accidental, Bond far too used to most of the agency seeing him down to the damned bones that it would hardly matter if someone saw him in his pants as he paced some nameless hotel room. But then it became a game, to see if Q would keep watching, if he would ask James to stop, if he would do anything at all but watch.

And he’d watched.

His hands find their way beneath the warm weight of the hooded sweater Q wears and he lets his fingers skim the soft fabric, hot from the skin beneath, until the other shivers. Only then does he set his hands beneath Q’s undershirt and touch.

“How terrifically naughty of you.”

Q shivers at the strong hands against his stomach, at the whispered accusation that tugs a twitch upon the thread of his body. “Merely doing my job,” he assures his agent, with the hint of a wry smile to betray his truth. “What was it you said, on our first date? Rather voyeuristic.”

Another button comes loose on Bond’s shirt. Another, almost reverent. As Q works his way down to bare his agent’s body, so Bond works his way up, the soft undershirt and sweater alike caught against his wrists. Q leans close, willing Bond’s hands higher even as he seeks to shield himself from his gaze just yet, and his lips part and close against his throat, humming softly as he reaches the last button.

“You knew I would watch,” he accuses his agent, fondly. “You clocked me from day one, 007.”

“I hoped you would watch,” James corrects him, freeing one hand to work the zip down on the hooded sweater before peeling it off Q’s shoulders to let drop to the floor. “I hoped you would watch and not the rest of MI6, but in truth I was willing to take the chance on that.”

“And you accuse me?”

“Of?”

Q’s eyes narrow and James smiles, shrugging the shirt from his shoulders as Q bares him. He is softer, after several months away from this, softer but still strong. Marks track over his body like rivers and canyons, scar tissue shiny against the fingers that softly press to it. He tugs Q’s shirt and the other allows it to be pulled over his head and aside.

“Of being naughty.”

A grin, then, bright and brief, and Bond steps closer to kiss Q as he sets his broad hands against the slighter man’s back, holding him just above his waist, thumbs gently caressing the smooth pale skin there. Q arches to his toes, though they’re of near-equal height, and he wraps his arms around Bond’s neck to leaning against him, his chest, his mouth, his everything. His agent’s hands skim lower to free Q from his trousers and the y-front briefs beneath, seen only in a flash of bright scarlet as they drop to his ankles. Q kisses him harder, seeking more, not the ferocious desperation that drove them together at headquarters, but a need to feel Bond’s resistance against him.

A need to feel Bond ground him, when Q could lose himself to the dizzying heights to which this infuriating, incredible man drives him.

“Socks,” whispers Q against his mouth.

Grinning, he lifts a foot behind himself and Bond stretches to grasp the striped toe and pull his sock loose. The other is removed just the same, until Q is bare and Bond’s trousers are tight to seek the same freedom. Q drops an arm and clever fingers seek to loosen Bond’s belt, zipping his trousers open, but rather than strip him, he seeks beneath to curl his palm and grasp. Surprise widens his eyes, long lashes draping in a languid blink.

“Well,” Q teases. “Maybe our intelligence isn’t all it’s made out to be if we didn’t know about this.”

“You did,” his agent reminds him, tilting his hips to press into Q’s stroking fingers.

“I assure you, I didn’t,” he laughs. “What’s the phrase? A grower, not a shower?”

“Terrible,” Bond snorts. “Utterly terrible.” But his voice is softening, soothing out to something easy and gentle as Q continues to stroke. This is certainly not his first time touching another man, that is infinitely clear and amusingly welcome. Bond bends his head to nuzzle against messy curls and hums, enjoying the sensation of being touched. He lets his eyes open and looks down the length of Q, smiling when he sees him, too, half-hard between his legs and entirely bare.

He rests his hands against Q’s chest, finding little round nipples peaking beneath his tickling touch.

“You will distract us both into another mess, I fear.”

“You fear?” Q grins, easing his hand away to hook his thumb instead in Bond's waistband.

“Anticipate.”

“Better, 007,” sighs the quartermaster, relieving Bond of his trousers with a smooth push. “Perhaps the shower, then, to ensure a mess is avoided.”

They no sooner slip to the ground with a _flumf_ than Bond steps forward and Q backward in step. They’ve certainly never danced together, but their bodies move in practiced tandem, the way their minds must when James is afield. A connection forged through daring risk and precarious danger, and soothed through quieter conversations once the threats have passed. They turn together in a languid kiss, tongues seeking past parted lips and teeth to entangle in the same smooth motion as their steps toward the bath.

Q has always kept an even place on Kinsey’s scale, as rightmost as measurable, and even then given only to particular partners or experiences. It is a surprise, admittedly, for him to find that one with such a reputation as Bond is far more center. Egalitarian, even, if Q is being generous. Not particularly picky, if he’s not. But it piques his curiosity, and after a clumsy stumble back against the bath and into it, Q pulls Bond close, to keep their bodies near rather than expose his own so openly.

“I’m loathe to ask,” Q admits, brow creasing, eyes narrowed in a slight smile, “but do you often -”

“As I do women, I’d gather,” James replies, stroking his thumbs against Q’s shoulders as he slips a leg between Q’s own and gently rocks him against the cool wall. “Do I often find myself entirely distracted by someone to the point of madness when they’re not near? Rarely.”

“God,” Q laughs, tucking his smile behind the back of his hand as his eyes flutter closed, “you are rather remarkable, 007.”

It’s a perfect answer. It’s entirely the answer that Q hoped to hear, and entirely the answer that quiets the wingbeat of worry within him. Every press of Bond’s thigh between his own pulses pleasure through him; every stroke makes him harder. Every brush of contact eases away near-frantic fretting that will surely arise again later - what becomes of them after tonight, what becomes of them at headquarters and beyond, whether this is a fling or something more and how they’ll navigate it.

Right now, it doesn’t matter. Right now all that matters is the unspoken promise in Bond’s words and the feel of his body, all muscle and sinew and scars, pressed against his own. Q runs his fingers through Bond’s hair and kisses him soundly, his other hand grasping to tug him stiff in limber strokes. Only the spray of water that Bond turns on is enough to distract, earning another genuine, lilting laugh from his quartermaster.

He drops his hands both to Bond’s thigh, bites his lip, and pushes. With a delightful obedience, the same sort that thrills Q whenever he gives Bond instruction on assignment, Bond relents in his steady pressure and moves back just enough. Just enough for Q to twist away from him, just enough for Q to press his chest to the warming shower tiles instead. Wanton, now, and wanting, he reaches between his own legs and strokes, bright eyes flashing from beneath long lashes as he looks to James across his shoulder.

“Something you need?” Bond chides, teasing, as he steals a welcome glance down his quartermaster’s bared body, presented for him.

“Don’t make me tell you.”

“You know I’m incapable of acting without you.”

“Bond.”

“Q.”

“007,” he breathes, forehead pressed to the tile, eyes closed and his laugh helpless now as he bends his back and arches. A hum tightens his words, controls them to a brisk crispness. “You’re needed urgently to shag me breathless, or I swear I’ll make you sleep on the sofa with the cats.”

“Now that is a threat,” James laughs, stepping closer again and kissing between Q’s shoulders as water cascades around them. The bathroom floor will be slippery with water when they’re done, the curtain not enough to contain the splashes should they move - and they will. He catches another laugh against his lips as he leans in, hand seeking between Q’s thighs to stroke against him, just to tease, for now, just to touch.

“You are beautifully shameless, did you know that?” James tells him, stepping closer and snaring Q’s hair again, turning his head to kiss against fine cheekbones and a delicate jaw, his other hand still rubbing enough to pull lovely little sounds from the quartermaster before him. “Wanton and needy and greedy.”

“I don’t make empty threats.”

“I wouldn’t dream of assuming you do,” Bond purrs, bending to get the soap and letting Q hear the click of the cap before he squeezes some against his fingers.

Q arches to his toes when Bond’s slick hand slips across his bottom and between his cheeks. His shiver ripples him taut enough to moan, from this alone, from knowing who’s the one washing him, gentler than Q ever imagined he might be. The tile is cool against his brow, Bond’s hands hot against his hips, following their hollows down between his legs to the thick dark thatch of curls and his cock standing stiff. He strokes him with both hands, lips parted against his shoulder, and Q rocks himself into the tight tunnel of Bond’s fingers, in time with the steady thrusting against his backside.

“It’s been a - a very long time,” Q admits, cheeks reddening ruddy as he turns to watch Bond over his shoulder. He doesn’t meet his eyes, but watches his form instead, reassuring strength and solid presence. “I can’t do what you do. Tailored suits and clever lines and charm. It’s hard to meet people, and most people I’ve found aren’t worth meeting.”

“Seems like you’ve not forgotten a step,” responds Bond, not unkindly, as their lazy thrusting rocks their bodies smoothly together. “Bloody baffling that someone like you hasn’t got a line of suitors.”

“Lucky you,” quips Q, to a hum of approval from his agent.

“Entirely so.”

Q arches again, shoulders rolling out the tension of too long bent across a laptop, and he reaches back to sharing soap between them, furtive fingers seeking out across hips and stomachs, chests and cocks. Q has seen him bare, he has imagined him bare more often. But to learn Bond now with all his scars and marks and yellowing bruises, to feel Bond’s lips curl against his shoulder with a scrape of teeth and a sucking kiss, is more than Q dared envision.

And the twist of fingers against his opening is nearly enough to undo him entirely, voice spilling loud and high against the wall. “Fuck’s sake, 007,” he moans. “Don’t tease.”

“Perhaps I’ll keep going until you’re not so bloody proper,” James laughs, but it’s hard enough to wait, now. He can do it another time. He’s fairly certain there will be another time. He hopes to hell there is.

Soap will have to suffice.

They’re both trembling, as much in anticipation as a strange sort of nervousness that overcomes one when they touch a new partner for the first time. James, despite his promiscuity and quite the collection of notches on both bedposts, finds the sensation utterly delightful. It’s novel. It’s lovely.

With a wet messy kiss to Q’s shoulder, he lines up and slowly arches forward to push in.

Q’s grip slides against the wall. With a shuddering sound, pain and pleasure caught in his helpless whimper, he arches to his toes as if to ease the stretch, but his back arches in want for more. It’s been so long, so bloody long that he’d forgotten how good it feels to be filled like this. His legs tremble out of his typically considerable control. His cock leaks, a drip hotter than the water’s spray against them.

He lowers a hand to ease its strain with a languid stroke as Bond’s body fits flush against his own and pushes his breath from him in a huff. It’s not an easy entry, lacking proper lubricant. There’s friction and it hurts, muscle pulling in ways to which it’s grown unaccustomed. And Q hears the echo of his agent’s accusations - _naughty_ \- as he presses his hips back for more. For movement. For all the pain and delight that scatters ceaseless shivers across his skin.

“Move,” he finally gasps, imperious even now - especially now. “For God’s sake, 007, move.”

“Will you ever,” Bond murmurs, pulling and shoving back in hard enough that Q trembles, curling slippery fingers against the wall. “Call me by my name?”

The rhythm he starts is slow, deliberate pushes adjusted enough that within just a few, Q is making near continuous sounds of pleasure against the wall. James turns to kiss against his cheek, a rough and claiming thing, and slips his hands to slim hips to hold him still. Gently, he sets his feet against the inside of Q’s, and, holding his balance, spreads him just a little wider.

“There,” he whispers, feeling the younger man clench against him. “That’s better.”

Q curses his agreement. His sides heave with the weight of his breath, too much with too little space for his lungs to stretch, when all inside him he’s filled with sensation. He doesn’t doubt, now, that Bond knows his way around a man’s body. Every unrelenting thrust inside him pulls pressure against Q’s prostate, weakening him to shaking. Laughing. Gasping his agent’s name with rising pitch.

Not 007.

Not Bond.

“James,” he moans, aching, body spread and stretched that he swears he’ll split in two and when he does, he’ll love it even then. Bond’s hand cups his cheek to turn his head. A rough kiss claims the corner of Q’s mouth and he parts his lips for him, brow creased, eyes scarcely open enough to see. He matches his own stroking to the speeding thrusts inside him, legs pulled tight and straight with his feet apart, balanced precariously on his toes.

Among embers sparking bright behind his eyes, a rush of blood that sounds between his ears like crashing waves, Q knows - not imagines, _knows_ \- that if he falls, Bond would catch him.

He knows that Bond would not let him fall.

James’ face is slack with pleasure, eyes closed and lips parted as he presses them in languid kisses against Q’s face. He slows his thrusts, deliberately holding Q still as he goes, grinning when he slips one hand down to grasp Q’s own and peel his fingers from his wet skin. He wants it to last, even a little longer. It is, after all, their first time. Perhaps a little awkward, perhaps a little forward, perhaps a little unconventional but this is the experience that will slowly begin to shape the others.

“Tell me,” he murmurs. “Tell me how it feels.”

A buck of hips for emphasis steals Q’s breath from him before he can speak, laughing as he puts both hands obediently to the wall again. He pushes his hips out further, bending deeper. It isn’t as comfortable as if he were splayed facedown in bed but it’s good.

It’s better than good.

“It’s bloody fantastic,” he murmurs, grinning crooked, almost shy. Almost, but for the way he sucks his lips between his teeth and releases them with a groan. Almost, but for how hard he pushes back against James’ cock and forward into his fist.

Almost, but for when he adds, “I feel full. God, 007 - James, you’re so deep it aches. It hurts and ah -” He gasps, when the thrusts become shallower, dragging against the sensitive spot inside that makes him shake so hard he can barely breathe. “I won’t be able to sit right tomorrow and - and I’ll think of you. This. Your cock in my arse, James,” he says, urgent, voice high and slurring sweetly, losing his posh diction to passion instead. “James, I - I’m going to - if you don’t stop -”

“I won’t stop,” comes the soft reassurance, the allowance, perhaps, for Q to let go and allow himself to be held for it. He’s close too, pushing into the slick and lovely heat of the quartermaster before him, and he rarely makes himself wait.

Not unless someone asks him to.

Not unless someone tells him to.

“Come on, Q,” he moans, digging blunt nails into Q’s pale thighs, parting his lips to pant hot against his shoulder as his breathing grows shallower, as his vision tunnels beautifully and the white noise of the water mingles with the rushing of blood past his ears. “Let me hear you come.”

Q’s voice cracks, jerking high, sustained. He drops his hand to the one on his thigh and laces their fingers together, squeezing tight.

“With me,” he begs, each breath an achievement to hold himself so close, each beat of his heart tilting him closer to the edge. “With me, James. Now,” he groans, as the release of his uncoiling orgasm nearly buckles his knees, a beautiful blow that sunders him to speechless sound and hot, wet stripes ribboning thick across his agent’s fingers.

Bond doesn’t need much more convincing than that. He follows Q over, once the delicious squeeze and tug against his cock eases to trembling, he fills him and kisses reverent against Q’s back, and when he pulls free, he hushes the little sound of displeasure that follows. One arm around Q’s middle, James holds them both up, and with a nuzzle against messy damp hair, he turns them to stand under the spray.

The quartermaster laughs weakly as he’s moved, unsteady steps and a hand against the wall to balance himself. The water prickles his skin, made sensitive from their exertion and he closes his eyes, head bowed forward to let it rinse him clean. Bond doesn’t let him sway more than he must. He doesn’t step back. He remains pressed close, hand against Q’s hip and arm looped around his waist.

Only when the feeling has returned to Q’s tingling extremities does he push his hair back from his face and turn to face his agent. He presses his palms to his cheeks and leans heavily against him, kissing him clumsy and smiling so hard he can hardly manage it. He keeps him close until exhaustion begins to weigh his body, until Bond shuts off the shower and squeezes the water from Q’s floppy curls.

Once in a day - hell, once a month for Q, once every few years - is rare.

Twice in a day is more than he thought he’d be able to manage.

And he still has to wipe out the video from his office. He still has to inject the rootkit he was working on. He still has to put on clothes enough to bid goodnight to the agent who surely now, now that he’s got what he wanted - what they both wanted - will surely leave. He hardly hears the strained, soft sound he makes at the thought of it.

But Bond certainly does.

“It would hardly be my first time carrying someone to bed,” he comments, “but I had hoped we would make it on our own feet this time.” With a smile, Bond reaches for the towel to wrap around his quartermaster; the thing dwarfs him and he looks up at the agent with a furrowed brow.

He looks away with a smile, the most he can muster, pleasantly spent and preparing himself to be emotionally so, as well. Curling his arms against the towel to hold it snug, Q takes careful steps onto the mat beside the bath, shaking his hair and wringing it out over the tub. He doesn’t look back to Bond, but he strives not to let his shuttering become transparent, offering a cheerful curse before he pads across the tile.

“Need to find you a towel,” he says. “Can’t have you dripping all across the floors.”

He returns a moment later, allowing a furtive glance to the agent, cock half-hard still but softening, body slack, and gentler still around his eyes. His age shows, a little, but he’s all the more attractive for it. Q tosses the heavy towel to him, scented sweetly with the lavender sachet he keeps alongside his linens.

“I think I can manage to bed,” Q says, grateful but politely providing Bond the reprieve he needs to leave without having to hear him say so. “Taxis come out this way if you need, or the tube station isn’t far. I can point it out to you if you like. I hope you’ll forgive me -”

“For tossing me out?” Bond asks, unfurling the towel. “That one might be a little harder than the rest.”

Q’s brow knits again, then smooths with another practiced smile. “For not walking you to the station,” he ventures, gently confused.

James takes his time to dry his legs, a quick scrub to dry his back before he wraps it around his waist and watches the quartermaster before him. In truth, he is surprised. He had expected, perhaps, another rejection in the office, and he would have gone away and not bothered again had there been one. But there hadn’t, it had been far from one. And then here, together away from the city, together making messes and getting clean, and then -

“Would you like me to go?” He asks carefully.

Q tugs his towel closer, up beneath his armpits, held in place beneath folded arms. Humans are complex systems, prone to curious bugs and flaws in logic, difficult to navigate and harder still to predict. But like any network, there are weaknesses, found through testing, probing, seeking out flaws that give way to the root. He doesn’t know how Bond’s programs are sequenced, let alone what input is required of him for the desired output.

Q has had few enough of them he wagers his uncertainty is warranted.

“I didn’t say that,” he finally answers. “I merely offered.”

A smile quirks at the corners of Bond’s mouth but he doesn’t let it grow beyond that. It is endearing, everything Q does is bloody endearing.

“Thank you,” he says, inclining his head enough to hide his smile when it does slip free. “I will take the offer under advisement should any ridiculous circumstances ever push me to leave you when I would rather spend the night.”

By some remarkable moment of strength and decorum left in the quartermaster after such a night, he resists clambering directly into Bond’s arms and demanding to be carried. He wants to. He imagines it. But instead he lifts his chin and smiles a little, cheeks warming already in anticipation of strong arms around him, and steady breath against his skin.

“Very well,” Q says, smile widening as he turns towards the bedroom again. “Right this way, 007.”


	3. Pretexting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Why the espionage today?”_
> 
> _“Would you have responded to a blatant request?” Bond asks, amused. “Had I come to you standing before the enormous screens in Q Division and asked you calmly to dinner would you have heard me at all or chastised me for being late to, apparently, three meetings?”_
> 
> _“I’d not have done either,” Q responds, popping a bit of pate on toasted brioche past his lips and humming pleased. “I’d have blushed myself to death over it.”_
> 
> _“You have your answer then, don’t you?”_
> 
> _“Do I?”_
> 
> _“Subterfuge was necessary in order to save your life,” Bond smiles._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have sorely outpaced ourselves with our newfound love of these two, and you'll now be able to read Concatenation twice a week! Look for a chapter every Monday and Friday, ongoing through (at least) January. Sorry not sorry!
> 
> [Want early chapters of this series and sneak-peeks of this series, and more? Find out how you can at our [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/wwhiskeyandbloodd?ty=h)!]

Shaking off the chill mist condensing on his coat, Q gives his tweed lapels a snap, grimacing at the beads of water that scatter to the marble floor. Why M didn't summon him herself, he hasn't the foggiest, but a late afternoon visit from another member of Q Branch informed him that he was expected for a meeting over supper, in a secure location. So much for a quiet night on the sofa, eavesdropping on exit nodes from beneath his cats.

So much for seeing Bond again, for that matter. Q staves off a frown with a lift of his chin and thinned lips.

His heels click across the hotel lobby, brisk steps with his laptop bag thumping against his side. A lavish sitting area with overstuffed couches and tables set too low to the ground is kept dim by the height of the chandeliers overhead. Two red-carpeted staircases wind upward towards the undoubtedly palatial rooms. There are businesspeople who pass by hurried, and those dressed in finery as if for opera who move much less so. The sounds of silverware and soft murmurs, the scent of buttery steak and expensive cigars, pulls him toward the restaurant within. At least she'll be paying for it, he allows, and it's a far cry better to have a late meeting over food than in the office, especially considering that his kitchen is damn near bare at this point.

"Hello," he says to the head of house. A quick step back and a lifted hand, still gloved, stops his coat being taken. "I'm meeting someone who should already be here. Name of Mansfield." An old alias, applied to every M that's come before her, in an old business indeed.

The books are checked, and a thin smile is returned to Q as he waits.

“Right this way, sir.”

He is led through the main room of the restaurant, filled, with respective space between, by large heavy tables with ornate chairs surrounding. Thick tablecloths, silk napkins, dense crystal glasses and endless fountains of wine from passing waiters. They take two steps up to the slightly more secluded booths, all with high winged seats, windows curtained with deep rich crimson drapes. Further on, and further in, and Q starts to wonder if this isn’t merely a cover for another office, somewhere behind an invisible door at the back of a fancy restaurant.

He tries not to pay attention to the delicious dinners they pass, if he’s on his way to a drab grey room beyond all of this finery.

“Here we are, sir,” the waiter says, stopping by the booth at the very end of the room, in a corner and behind a wall, deliberately detailed, to keep the rest of the restaurant partitioned off away from them. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to take your coat?”

“No, thank you.”

“Very good, sir.”

The man deposits a heavy leather-bound menu to the edge of the table before he departs, with a thick sheet of eggshell-white paper atop listing the evenings recommended wine selection for the special dishes. Q regards it with a sigh before pulling his bag over his head and setting it into the booth before he slides in.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Q says, even though he isn’t. “The tube tends to get more crowded in winter.”

“Quite understandable,” comes the smooth, low, and very much masculine reply. “I would spend time indoors with weather like this as well, to be fair.”

"Bloody hell," Q breathes, when in fact he can breathe again. A swift twist finishes freeing him from the loops of woolen scarf around his throat, and he tosses it atop his bag a little harder than he means to do. Bond lifts a brow, and his glass.

"I hope you don't mind that I've had an aperitif while waiting."

"You scared the daylights out of me, I was sure I'd been made."

"Not yet," Bond smiles. "After dinner, perhaps."

Q sets his hands to his hips, heart hammering in his throat, and he regards Bond above water-spotted glasses. He sits serene, sipping his whatever-it-is, dressed in a sleek two-piece suit in steel grey and tailored within an inch of its life. His tie is nearly festive by compare, an icy pale blue. He works his bottom lip between his teeth and finally settles into the booth, removing his leather gloves a finger at a time.

"It's not like you to have a meeting so late," Q points out. "Or at all, for that matter. You missed three today."

Bond hums, acknowledging the truth in that but hardly tripping over himself to apologize.

“I was in with M,” he says and Q’s eyes narrow. James sets down his glass and gestures to a waiter that comes by to bring one for Q as well. “Same,” he states, smiling enough that the server swallows before he turns to go. “Once out of those meetings, I had little more to do than suggest to a passing minion that M had something to tell you and it went down the chain. No one is the wiser, and we get our promised dinner date.”

"Promised?" Q laughs, brows lifting high as he slides his glasses free to wipe them dry. It comes to him all at once - pinned to the wall of his office, legs wrapped around Bond's waist, a date agreed upon amidst meeting the demands of their bodies. "I didn't think you were serious. A date? Truly," he chides, doubtful but smiling despite.

"Truly. I'm aware of my reputation, darling."

"Darling."

"And I know you must think me an absolute cad."

"Entirely."

"You're not wrong," Bond allows, despite the amused interruptions. "But I've yet to get everything I want from you, and you said yourself that you would try to prevent me from having what I want. With that in mind, I did what I had to in order to get you here with me. A little espionage between lovers never hurt anyone."

Q breathes another little laugh, turning his fingers against his cheeks when they blush too hot. He murmurs thanks to the waiter as his glass is brought to him - not ordered by him, mind, but chosen for him by the unfairly handsome man smiling serenely at him from across the table. Q takes a sip, and relenting, asks, "And what is it you want of me, exactly?"

“Much, much more than a very welcome rutting and a fuck in the shower,” James smiles, dropping the weight of his pompous straight-shouldered presentation to sit more comfortably. “In truth, I genuinely want to share a dinner with you. Spend time that could tomorrow be reverted to merely voices through an earpiece and instructions through the fax.”

“We don’t use faxes anymore, it’s too -”

“If you think I won’t kiss you, here and now, to make you stop talking,” James laughs, setting his hands - beautiful large hands - clasped to the table as he watches Q across it. Q just snorts, rubs his hands against his cheek again before mirroring the position of the agent in front of him.

“So you would like a date.”

“Yes.”

“A ridiculously expensive dinner at a lavish place.”

“I suppose.”

“And?”

“And perhaps next time I will take you to a diner,” Bond grins. “If you are so hardly impressed by the surroundings.”

“For a second date?”

“My dear Q, you’re starting to catch on.”

"In the interest of full disclosure," Q begins, lips closing and eyes widening as Bond rumbles a low sound at him across the table. He blinks, and continues. "I should make you aware that I've not been on a date in just over half a decade. There's a reason for that, beyond a job that renders me unavailable to any sort of normal relationship, and beyond the general lack of interest."

He observes the subtle stretch of Bond's fingers towards his own, fanning in a discreet spread. Damn him to hell, damn reason and propriety too. Q stretches a single forefinger in return, and loops it together with Bond's own.

"Let me hear it," Bond says.

"I am exceedingly unskilled in conversation, face-to-face. I am unpracticed. I generally dislike contact as a whole. Small talk is too wasteful of energy for me to have learned how to maintain it, and I've heard all too often the flirtations between you and other dinner partners, shall we say, to have any hope of providing adequately charming company."

A small smile pulls at the corners of Bond’s lips. Q realizes then, with a strange and cool sensation down his spine, how bloody exhausted he looks, how bored - not with Q, but with the thought and memory brought forward by him just now.

“Charming,” he starts, “is such a relative term nowadays that we all tend to take it for granted and create our own meaning entirely.” James shifts his hand to take Q’s properly and draws a rough thumb over his knuckles, again and again, warming the cool skin there. “What you hear with other dinner partners is an elaborate dance where neither partner knows the steps yet feels it imperative to pretend as though they do. What you hear is hardly charm, it is preening and a desperate hope that the other person doesn’t see through the transparent act.”

James raises his eyes, pale blue and bright and beautiful, and Q watches the way the corners soothe out in a smile that never reaches his lips. It doesn’t have to.

“I don’t want to invite you to dinner and force you to put on a show. I don’t want a show. I want time spent with my quartermaster, even if it means we leave this place early for somewhere more appropriate, or eat in utter silence, taking advantage of the generous cover that MI6 offers at such an establishment for us to enjoy ourselves.”

There’s a pause, gentle, and then James laughs, ducking his head. “Perhaps it will help to know that I have not been on a proper date in about as long as you have.”

"I find that hard to believe," Q manages, blush warming away his cool restraint as he curls his fingers a little tighter around Bond's.

"I find it hard to believe there's not a queue of eligible men beating down your door."

"Mm. There might be, if any knew where I live, though they'd hardly be coming to spirit me away to an expensive dinner at the Savoy."

"Then I'm pleased to have been a surprise."

"Entirely so," Q says, keeping their hands folded together as he takes another sip from his tiny glass of liqueur. "I'm pleased to be surprised. Will you forgive me -"

Bond makes another little warning sound, smile widening. "You know I hate sentences that start that way."

"Only a moment." Relaxing his hand away from Bond's, he sets his glass to the table. As Bond orders for them both, Q unlatches his bag and fumbles within. Something clicks. This earns a swift, subtle glance from the agent, senses always prickled to high alert, before he continues through starters and mains, accompany cocktails, but stops before puddings with an allowance to let his partner decide that later.

When the waiter departs, Q reaches behind his ear, bright eyes flashing above his frames to survey the restaurant. From beneath his hair and just inside his ear, he removes an earpiece, tiny and seemingly frail, and sets it into his bag before closing the whole thing up again.

"There," he says, nose wrinkling a bit as he allows himself a wider smile. "Didn't need that buzzing in my ear for the rest of the night."

“Does M know you record all her meetings?”

“She insists I do,” Q replies. “Something about previously disastrous breaches of security that need to be catalogued to avoid further damage to the program.”

“And the idea that the very recordings meant to divert such a disaster could in fact be its catalyst -”

“Crosses her mind frequently.” Q smiles, watches as Bond smiles back. “There is a dark side to every perfect idea, I’m afraid.”

“No such thing.”

“As a dark side? I assure you that -”

“As a perfect idea,” Bond laughs. “There is always a flaw in the system.”

Q looks displeased for a moment, brows furrowed and lips parted as though to make clear that his work is all about ironing out any flaws in any system, and surely his time is worth more than a theoretical rat race through a server. He takes a breath and Bond continues.

“Flaws that lead to you meeting me, this evening, and not M, say, tend to be the lesser of the evils that plague MI6, I would hope.”

"You hope?"

"If human glitches like this are the greater evil faced by the SIS, then I daresay you and I will soon be looking for new work," Q smiles, wry. "We can call it a day and pat each other on the back for a job well done."

Bond's laugh pulls the air from Q's chest and the rhythm from his heart. He hides a sound against his glass and sips the cocktail slowly, tension simmering away in a sweet immolation of complex flavors blended with smoky scotch. With warmth simmering in his belly as the starters are brought on tiny trays and baffling garnishes, Q settles back in his seat and stretches his legs a little.

"I should've toasted, shouldn't I?" He says suddenly, brightly meeting Bond's curious amusement.

"If you like," Bond tells him, taking up his martini, glass flecked with ice from the chill of his drink.

Q sucks his lips between his teeth and puffs them free before Bond can speak. With a toss of hair back from his face, offering a crooked smile as his curls slip back across his brow. “May all our bugs be so manageable, and all our errors lead to such agreeable results.”

The crystal rings with the gentle tap they share and Q allows the sound of his to hum to silence before taking another sip. It is strangely comfortable, to sit in such a rich environment, surrounded by rich people and rich food and too much spare time. It’s uncommon. It’s novel. It’s a far cry from a pot noodle on his couch or a lukewarm lunch in the cafeteria. Carefully, Q curls a leg up under himself and finds that Bond could care less, watching the people perhaps more of habit than genuine desire. That, too, is welcome.

“Why didn’t you ask me?”

“Hmm?” James tilts his head and Q finds his smile widening.

“To dinner.”

“I did ask you to dinner.”

“Why the espionage today?”

“Would you have responded to a blatant request?” Bond asks, amused. “Had I come to you standing before the enormous screens in Q Division and asked you calmly to dinner would you have heard me at all or chastised me for being late to, apparently, three meetings?”

“I’d not have done either,” Q responds, popping a bit of pate on toasted brioche past his lips and humming pleased. “I’d have blushed myself to death over it.”

“You have your answer then, don’t you?”

“Do I?”

“Subterfuge was necessary in order to save your life,” Bond smiles, inclining his head as Q takes up a lemon to squeeze brisk across a fleet of oysters, little black shells arranged around a bay of ice. “You’re taking to this with aplomb, darling. I half-expected we’d wind up getting döner kebab and a few bottles of beer.”

Q pauses, oyster held carefully aloft so as not to lose its brine. All at once the little wrinkles smooth from the corners of his eyes; his jaw stiffens not in annoyance but from some reflex beyond his control. He consumes the oyster with a fluid motion, a single bite, and though it tastes of the fresh sea spilling refreshing across his tongue, he stops himself making a sound this time.

“We could do that, if you like,” he says, setting the shell back in its place. “It’s rare that I have an opportunity such as this, and I find that well-bred public school habits return in force despite how far I’ve come from anything near posh.”

Bond takes an oyster for himself and keeps his eyes deliberately on Q as he swallows it, relishing the slick sensation and salt and sour of the ocean. He licks his lips, lets the silence hang a moment more before sitting back.

“From whence did you come, then, extraordinary thing?” He asks. 

“You’ve seen my neighborhood,” Q answers, but his rebuff is met only with an arched brow and the offer of another oyster. He sighs as he leans forward to accept it, slick against his tongue and down, bringing his fingers to his lips to softly taste the brine from them. Perhaps it is the alleged aphrodesia of the oysters themselves, but Q blushes suddenly at the sensation and taste of it.

He watches for a moment the man before him who fed it to him.

And before he can allow any further thoughts of what may be fed to him before the night is out, Q clears his throat.

“Sussex to Eton to Oxford,” Q says, shrugging as if to let the names slip from his shoulders. “Magdalen there, though, for computer science. Had I chosen engineering at Christ Church instead I’d be three for three in the ‘posh prat’ academic Olympiad. A right rah.”

He washes away the discomfort with a sip of his drink, as another - and their mains - are brought to the table. Roast halibut in a dizzying sauce of bacon and braised onions, steaming still, with another florid drink bursting with a garnish of spiky rosemary. Bond has another martini, and Q unfolds his leg from beneath him to lay his serviette across his lap.

“Say something,” Q tells him suddenly. “After you’ve arranged such an extraordinary evening, I feel as if all that I’ve said has made me sound spoiled and ungrateful. Tell me where you went to school, tell me something about yourself. Otherwise I’ll regale you with how I’ve spent the last two nights eating pot noodle and frozen dinners and assure you I'm posh no more.”

James just watches him, taking up his drink to have another sip before setting it aside. Before him, Q squirms in his seat, as much because he has to sit with both feet on the ground as because he is being looked at, over a fancy dinner with a fancy man.

“You don’t sound ungrateful,” he assures him, setting his own napkin in his lap. “You sound endearingly nervous. To the point that I might consider us taking dessert elsewhere and avoiding the foppery of overpriced steamed pudding.”

Q looks up, shocked, and Bond merely blinks at him, confirming his words, here, at least, are entirely true.

“Bloody hell.”

“It’s frightful,” James agrees, laughing as he settles further back in his seat and takes up his cutlery. “But I have to admit, not as frightful as your dinners the days leading up to this. You’ll tempt me into having gourmet food delivered to your door at this rate.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“Am I?”

“To tell me about yourself.”

“What can I tell you that my file does not?” James asks, bringing a mouthful of dinner to his lips and raising his brows as he chews.

Q turns his tines downward and cuts away a slip of the fish that falls to perfect strips of tender white meat. These are speared carefully and brought to his lips in a moment of absolute bliss, eyes briefly closing as he savors it, fingertips against his mouth.

“I would tell you how dangerous assumptions can be, James, but assumptions are what lead us here, so they can’t be all bad,” he says, smiling as he takes up his knife to cut off another sliver. “Only parts of your file have been presented to me, relevant to your physical aptitude testing and medical results.”

“Now there’s an exciting read.”

“Hardly so,” Q responds, almost prim, even as his voice lowers a little. “They told me nothing of how strong your hands curl in my hair. Nothing of how your chest heaves, when you gasp against my shoulder. And your file said not a word of how gentle you can be.”

“I hope you keep the same silence,” Bond laughs, that low, lovely sound Q has come to associate with warm lips dry against his skin in soft sleepy kisses. “Would hardly do me good to have gentleness show up on my screening. M would have a fit.”

Q levels him with a look and the agent finds himself laughing more from that alone. It’s so proper, it’s so primly offended. He is so lovely. In truth, the words ring pleasant against his skin and through his bones. He enjoys being that for the one man he wants to be that for. He’s as shocked as anyone, really. With another pause to chew his mouthful and quietly swallow it, he delays answering. It’s never a fun story to tell, and though he tells it rarely - or the truth of it, at least - it is still far from what he wants out in the open.

“I grew up in Scotland,” he says finally. “Cold, dismal, terrible place.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Awfully.”

“You’ve let the accent go,” Q notes, sliding forward in his seat as his gaze drifts down the sleek fit of Bond’s suit and back again, searching between his eyes. “By choice?”

“By practice. Like all the other ones I can pull off now, but this one has settled in since it’s where I spend most of my time.” He pauses, and smiles a little as Q studies him with all the attention he pays to one of his beloved gadgets. “It’s where I prefer to be.”

“Liar,” grins Q. “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard you say the name London without a curse preceding or following it. Sometimes both. Do you visit, ever?”

“The place I was born? No. Ghastly place, I’d hate to visit it.”

Q’s lips quirk. “Did you study there as well?”

“Pett Bottom, Canterbury,” James replies, clipping the consonants before he takes another bite of dinner. “I think I hated it there more than I did at the house. But one has little choice when their parents leave them orphaned and only one aunt steps up to help continue his meagre education.”

Q’s movements still, his fork held motionless for the moment it takes him to draw breath again. His brow creases, and he swallows. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“That I had only one aunt?” Bond muses, and Q manages a crooked smile despite himself.

“No,” he says simply. “Not that.”

James lifts his eyes, a silent acceptance of the sympathy, before he blinks and sets his fork quietly to his plate with a click.

“She thought a lot of me, my aunt,” he continues. “A clever woman, but blinded by her love of family, I believe. She sent me to Eton,” he grins, watching Q’s jaw slacken hearing the familiar name again. “For a grand total of two terms before I found myself… removed.”

“Oh God,” Q laughs and Bond shivers at the sound of it, like warm sun breaking through clammy fog, dissipating the dense emotions from their table. “You didn’t.”

“I most certainly did. Godolphin.”

“I was at Manor,” exclaims his quartermaster, before Q presses a hand across his mouth with a sidelong glance to the restaurant, who pays his pleasure no mind at all. “We’d have been neighbors, give or take a few decades. I’m sure we’d have fostered a requisite loathing of the other quite quickly.”

“Do you truly think so?” Bond asks, his dinner forgotten, his drink warming, as he watches Q’s eyes flash bright and narrow before him.

“Of course, there’s no other way about it. We’d have snarled about the other ferociously to our housemates, all the while rutting off in library corners. God bless public schools,” Q murmurs, delighted.

“However briefly,” agrees his agent. “Wound up at Fettes back in Scotland after that -”

“Oh no,” Q interrupts. “You’ve not told me how you were sent down.”

James laughs, purses his lips and allows his throat to work in a swallow. “Something akin to the rutting in library corners as you’ve suggested,” he murmurs. “I believe they put it in a more politically correct way and claimed I was having ‘girl trouble’ with one of the maids.”

Q’s lips part but he manages not a sound, after a moment, the agent laughs and brings a hand to his lips.

“In truth it was hardly so severe. I happened upon an illicit meeting and refused to keep my silence. I got a mark upon my record and an arse kicking straight back to Scotland.” He shakes his head and takes up his fork again, another bite of dinner. He regards Q across the table from him before he hums, and shakes his head. “I was hardly so scandalous at thirteen, Q. I had my first true experience with rutting in library corners in Paris only several years later.”

“Always the brave and stalwart hero,” Q tells him, more than a little pleased by the summary of the man who has yet to disappoint him in any measurable way. “Tell me about Paris.”

“It smells of cigarette smoke and the streets are too narrow.”

“Bollocks,” grins Q as he takes up his glass and reclines a little, arm folded over his stomach. He pushes his feet out just enough that they settle between Bond’s undoubtedly polished shoes, and their ankles press together. “I’m sure it’s extraordinary.”

“You’ve never been?”

“I’ve never left here,” Q tells him. “I hate flying and only know that based on a terrifying ninety-minute hop up to Dublin. I took a bus back.”

“You can take the tube to Paris,” Bond reminds him.

“Under the channel?” His quartermaster laughs, voice pitching nervous. “No, I think not. So long in such a small space? I can scarcely manage a crowded commute home at the end of the day.”

“Should I start sending a private car to take you home, then?”

“You should tell me about Paris.”

“I have.”

“Hardly.”

Bond tilts his head and gently crosses his ankles together, catching Q’s foot between and holding it in the V of his legs as he crosses his arms next.

“It was a school exchange trip,” he says. “To see the art and experience the culture. We went for four days.”

“Four days is hardly enough time to see Paris.”

“I saw little of it regardless, beyond what was immediately outside the window,” James points out. “Having suddenly found myself ill with a head cold and allowed to remain in our shared quarters while the rest of the boys enjoyed the city.”

Q bites the inside of his lip and narrows his eyes. Bond narrows his in turn. It’s a game of patience, and amusement for them both, and after a moment Bond parts his lips and allows Q this victory - should he choose to call it that in the end.

“His name was Armand,” James finally murmurs. “And he was twenty-two.”

His quartermaster’s grin spreads until he releases his bottom lip, and he takes a sip of his drink.

“How scandalous,” Q softly declares, his amusement scarcely concealed. “Twenty-two?”

“I was sixteen,” adds Bond, to Q’s delight. He squirms a little, their legs rubbing together before he settles again, watching his agent. “To be frank, that isn’t what I thought you’d find scandalous.”

“What, that his name was Armand?” Q snorts, pleased. “You’re speaking to someone who spent the better part of his school years rubbing off against other boys. Only boys, in fact, though whether that’s to be blamed on nature or nurture is without conclusion. It would take an extraordinary cognitive dissonance to find that at all alarming, James,” Q smiles, “though I admit a certain delight in hearing it. Was he handsome?”

“Terribly. Dark hair and smoky skin. Brown eyes so deep in color they were nearly black. Fit,” Bond adds with a soft laugh. “Very fit. As gentle and demanding as one’s first should be, I imagine. I’ve kept things fairly balanced since then, though I seem to have kept an affection for brown-haired beauties with striking eyes.”

Bond's last companion afield was a blonde woman, lithe and sinewy, and Q recalls her with stiffness in his throat before his puzzlement gives way to realization, and his eyes widen. Then they narrow. He squints, helplessly charmed despite how much he resisted it at first. It felt disingenuous then, Q not unfamiliar with being a notch on someone’s belt, especially considering Bond’s reputation for acquiring them.

How lovely it is to be wrong.

Q finishes his drink as their dishes are cleared away, and he asks softly for the check. Warm fingers find his own on the table and squeeze, and Q returns the gentle pressure. “You’ll forgive me -”

“Stopped asking forgiveness now, have you?”

“- for wishing to be somewhere that I can kiss you,” Q finishes, brow raised.

James smiles, slow and deliberate, but it is warm. Playful and warm.

“You could kiss me here.”

“No.”

“No? Shall I kiss you then?”

“No!” Q laughs. The check arrives and before he can even reach for it, a black Amex is slipped for the waiter to take. Q watches it taken away and narrows his eyes as James raises his brow.

“I keep a flat in London,” he says finally. “If your cats would allow a few more hours of reprieve.”

Q’s throat jerks as he swallows, a shy smile flickering wide and then small, then wide again as he looks away, eyes hidden by a flash of dim light against his glasses.

“Would it offend you if I told you I’d already gone home and fed them before this?” Q asks, their fingers snaring tighter together, slotting betwixt the others. “To be fair, I thought I was due for a meeting with the madam.”

“How convenient, then, that your meeting has been cut brief.”

A brush of lips against his fingers shivers Q’s spine straighter, his shoulders flaring wide. He makes a little sound, embarrassed - yes - but pleased as well. The card is returned and signed for, but when Q goes to slip his hand free, Bond holds it fast.

“That was an invitation, by the way.”

Q laughs, a little drunk and a lot delighted. “I’m aware.”

“And?”

“And let me go.”

“Not until I have an answer.”

“Yes,” sighs Q, leaning over the table, perhaps further than he means. Perhaps not far enough. They are precariously close, unnoticed or unminded by anyone within sight of them, and Q breathes out softly, whispering. “But I’ve got to put on my things again, 007.”

A hum is his only answer, but his hand is let go, and as Q shifts around preparing to gather his things, Bond’s coat is returned by their waiter, gloves and scarf hanging from inside the sleeve, keeping everything together. They dress quickly, Bond finishing his drink and drawing his lips back with a sigh at the sharpness of the gin.

He gestures that Q walk before him, and follows, hands in his pockets, eyes just occasionally flicking down to take in Q’s lovely legs as he walks.

Outside, he hums quietly as Q makes for the taxi stand, and they wait for the valet to pull the shiny Volvo up before them. 

“I didn’t make that,” Q snorts, his false disdain easing reluctantly as Bond holds the door for him to enter.

He does, and when it clicks closed, he shivers. Dizzied by drink and conversation, by a real and viable date that was had at the bloody Savoy of all places, Q squirms in his seat as Bond circles smoothly to the driver’s side. Q’s belly tugs tight and he folds his gloved fingers together to stop them from straying where he wants to touch, in a rush of exuberant excitement over all of it.

All of it, Bond in his suit with his sly little sidelong smile. All of it, the halibut and oysters and extraordinary drinks. All of it, the way their legs and hands and words fit together as if they were made to fit just so.

Q is drunk. He is drunk and he is smitten beyond help or reason.

“Thank you,” he says, as Bond revs the engine and twists the wheel, “for a wonderful evening.”

James just smiles, doesn’t look over but reaches to take Q’s hand when he changes gears and holds it as he drives. He navigates these streets as easily as he does foreign ones on assignment, knowing London intimately. He does not let go of Q’s hand, he sets it to the gearshift when necessary and curls their fingers again when not.

The flat is in a highrise, and the Volvo slinks into the car park and to its rightful spot. Bond gives Q a pleased narrow-eyed look before bringing his hand to his lips to kiss.

“You will love the pretentiousness of my having the penthouse,” he says, “but you will not be able to argue the view.”

“A view,” Q breathes, in a facsimile of awe. “Of all the fog lying over London, thick as pea soup? Will wonders never cease.”

“Prick.”

“Bastard.”

Bond keeps Q’s hand in his and pulls him close enough to kiss his brow, deliberately avoiding his lips even as Q tilts to meet him in a kiss. His quartermaster grins, nose wrinkling in a snort of laughing delight, until Bond finally relinquishes him to let him exit.

Laptop in hand, eternally, and scarf drawn so high against his nose that his glasses fog, Q follows in Bond’s footsteps. Up winding flights of stairs from the car port to an elevator just inside the building itself. When the door whispers closed, Q steps forward, face tilted away from the camera inside, and rests his cheek against Bond’s shoulder.

“I meant what I said,” he murmurs.

“That I’m a bastard?”

“That, and that it was a beautiful evening.”

Bond raises a brow, glancing over his shoulder to the tuft of brown hair he can see against him.

“Date,” Q corrects, rueful. “A beautiful date.”

“Better,” Bond replies, shifting so he can rest his chin atop Q’s head. “Learning the correct terms for a mission does make it run smoother.” He smiles when Q gently nudges him with his computer, and continues to watch the numbers grow higher and higher, until the metallic ding announces their arrival on the top floor.


	4. Access Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _James listens, he delights in listening. This man, beautiful and lithe and little - with glasses too large and hair too messy, who has kept the agent entirely in thrall since the bloody art gallery - is a surprise at every turn. It’s rare that Bond can find someone to willingly dominate him. He is tall, he is built, he is - as Q has several times griped - the epitome of the masculine. And yet despite being more than willing to take control with women, he has, in his life, found that he rather enjoys being controlled by men._
> 
> _He considers the lovely thing before him._

James moves first, this time, to lead them to the single door on that floor. He opens it with two keys before reaching just beyond the door to work the code on the alarm system that releases the last catch holding the door closed.

He turns on the light in the entranceway and allows Q to take the flat in on his own.

The quartermaster blinks against the sudden light, eyes accustomed to the dim of night already. He keeps his laptop close, finally holding it to his chest, as he steps out of the little hall to take in the space at large. And it is that - enormous, even, for a flat in London. The living room spreads wide before him, shining tile floors offset by matte black leather chairs and a sofa that seems to drink the light into it. Sleek technology - a stereo system, a thin television screen - nestles within installed shelving, stained dark. A hall leads off towards further quarters, another towards a kitchen with chrome appliances glistening within, and all around are windows. Great grand windows stretching from floor to ceiling leading to balconies on either side, and beyond -

“Bloody hell, Bond.”

Q’s heels tap against the polished floor as he comes closer to overlook the city at length. The Thames sparkles sinuous and black in the distance, reflecting the lights of the expanding city around it. Like oil, the city shines ichorous and thick, a thousand windows shining light into the night. They are above the fog, above everything. Q pulls a breath into his lungs and holds it, pressing a hand to the glass so cold he can feel it through his gloves.

When he speaks, his breath pools grey against the sliding door. “If I didn’t know so intimately what you do,” Q says, “I’d think we pay you far too much.”

“The irony is that you do pay me too much,” Bond says, unwinding his scarf and hanging his coat up in the hall, toeing off his shoes and closing the door. “I hardly have time to bloody enjoy the money before I’m jetted off again to make more.” He makes his way on silent feet towards where Q stands and watches the city over his shoulder. “I believe that is what they call a first world problem.”

Q stands a little taller when he feels Bond so close behind him. Still in his coat and gloves and scarf, his bag held to his chest, he shivers but it’s little to do with the cold from the window before him. A slow turn brings them to face each other, and Q lifts his chin to draw his nose alongside his agent’s, words whispering warmth against his lips.

“There’s not compensation enough in the world that could repay what you do,” he says, “for all of us. For everyone.”

“Sap,” Bond murmurs.

“Perhaps, but one who is in amazement of you far beyond the catalogue-perfect flat that you keep,” grins his quartermaster. “Is it alright if I take my shoes off?”

“Please,” comes the warm reply. He doesn’t point out that in his own home, Q takes his shoes off at the door. He doesn’t, because he doesn’t care. A floor is easy enough to clean, a floor in such a lavish place gets cleaned frequently. Bond watches, eyes hooded, as Q moves past him to leave his things by the door, his coat on the rack, his scarf too, gloves in the pockets, laptop on the floor, angled towards the flat rather than the door.

His socks are red and white check today.

James meets him halfway and wraps his arms around Q’s middle to hold him close.

“I believe you wanted to kiss me,” he reminds him.

Q hums a little note of pleasure as he’s tugged flush against his agent. Firm bodies press tight, each able to read the other in a sound, a breath out of time, a staggered pause of movement. Q turns his head aside, rubbing a cheek against Bond’s stubbled skin, and he slips his arms up around his neck.

“Constantly,” Q confesses. “Since I first regained my senses tonight. Every time we pass each other at headquarters. Every night, if I could, and especially on those that I cannot.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

For once, Q hasn’t an answer.

He lifts to his toes and leans heavy against his agent, their mouths wrapped warmly together in a humming kiss. Lips spread and seek out the other’s own to hold between them, easing wide for tongues to sweep together before closing languid again. Q’s heart flutters faster; his cheeks grow ruddy. He laughs against Bond’s mouth as he’s turned in a slow circle and they tilt their kiss together again.

Slow and deliberate, steady and careful, round and round they go. At last, Q pulls back to laugh properly, leaning against the man before him, just as warm, just as comfortably tipsy with alcohol as he.

“What are we doing?”

“Dancing.”

“Spinning awkwardly on the spot, 007.”

“Then put some effort into it, Q,” Bond chastises him with a grin. “I can only lead so much, some of it relies on you as well, you know.”

He kisses his quartermaster before he can complain. It is as though they are children again, laughing against the other, holding close, trying to find steps between steps and against each other, over and over. Perhaps they would have been a right nuisance at school together. Perhaps they would have sworn blue murder at the other and cursed their name, finding themselves opposite each other in detention regularly and then in a tangle of sweat and limbs and feverish kisses in the silent corners of the library late in the evenings.

Perhaps one way or another they would have found each other.

Q eases into the movements, a waltz looping languid around the living room. He rests a hand on Bond's chest, the other held aloft with Bond's fingers slotted between his. He leans enough to rest his head against his agent's shoulder, breathing deep the scent of him, his cologne crisp as apples, heady as sandalwood, and with something in it that reminds Q of Earl Grey. He tucks his smile against the collar of Bond's shirt as they turn again, and the rug is narrowly avoided as an obstacle beneath their socked feet.

"When I stumble," Q asks, "will you catch me?"

"It would be my pleasure after all the times you've done it for me," Bond tells him, smiling as his quartermaster snorts a laugh against his neck. "You've saved my neck more times than my ego can stand to remember."

"I wasn't trying to be romantic," Q grins, but it fades, breath by breath. His brow creases, and softly, he says, "I mean only that, since falling seems inevitable now, I hope you won't let me be hurt if I fall too hard."

For a moment there is no reply, one way or another, and Q holds his breath and wonders if perhaps he should have just kept his drunk confessions to himself. Then Bond bends, as though in a bow, and lets go of Q’s hand to hoist him up by his thighs instead.

As he had in the office, as though Q is light as a feather. He presses their foreheads together and smiles, nuzzling his nose alongside Q’s as he continues to gently waltz alone. With a turn, as graceful as it is drunkenly confident, he lands them on the sofa with a bounce, laughter and a grunt between them both.

“We must plan for inevitabilities,” Bond murmurs, “with strategically placed couches. I’m afraid I’m in danger of similar damage if I fall along with you.”

A kiss, gentle, again, again, and James grins as Q makes a sound against him before wrapping his arms heavy around his agent’s neck. Their mouths meet clumsy, seeking out new contours to learn, kissing high and wide and low and deep. They bump noses and nuzzle. Their nearness warms them both. Neither seeks with needy fingers for anything more than what they have, confessions held between their lips and each held safe from harm by the only person now who could inflict it on them.

Q shakes his head and parts their kiss as he does, clearing his thoughts back to a warm and drunken blur. Their legs slip between each other. Their hands sink into the other's hair, and Q squints as his skewed glasses are gently removed.

"What would you have done," he muses, fingers sliding along Bond's collar and hooking into his tie, "had I tossed you out of my office for insubordination?"

"Does it matter now? You didn't."

"I thought about it," Q grins. "Not because I wanted you gone, but because I wanted to see how you'd react to not getting your way. You're very spoiled, you know that?"

“And you, very entitled,” James quips back, but he considers the question as he slides down the couch to lie upon it instead, taking Q with him to lie atop. “Had you tossed me out, I would have gone. Cursing and angry and licking my wounds but I would not have pushed something that was unwelcome.”

James grins, then, bright, and strokes his thumb against Q’s forehead, catching curls to tangle in.

“I would have politely called you out on being a cad, though, your interest was transparent,” Bond adds, eyes narrowing.

“Bollocks it was.”

“Shall I tell you how, in so many ways -”

"No," Q interjects, "no, Bond - James - that's unnecessary." He parts his lips with his tongue and tries to tamp down a grin. "And false."

Q has but the length of half a breath before he's rooted into the couch, turned over to his back and held by Bond atop. A rough hand pushes up his jumper, untucking his shirt, and he tenses, laughing high and nervous, as Bond holds his fingers just against Q's ribs. Being ticklish is unfortunate. Being ticklish around a secret service agent at the peak of physical prowess is bleak.

"Tell me, then," Q relents, attempting to squirm away and succeeding only in tucking himself against the back of the couch, laughter muffled as he buries it in the cushion. "Tell me of my allegedly transparent interest. Bully."

“First,” Bond says, shifting around to adjust his weight against him, “you would blush. Every time. Just here.” He bends to kiss softly beneath Q’s eyes, over his nose, down to the tip of it for good measure. “Now that I've the pleasure of knowing you better, I can tell when you swallow curse words without saying them. You look as though someone set something nasty before you and you're trying to be polite and say nothing at all.”

“Do I?”

“Oh yes.” Another kiss against Q’s cheek for good measure, as Bond’s fingers splay against flushed skin and seek higher up his chest. “And then there's your body language…”

“Irredeemably stiff and stilted, I imagine, like my spoken language,” Q says, hopeful despite the shiver that pours across his skin when Bond’s hand passes warm over a pebbled nipple.

“At times, deliberately so. Unwilling to yield the laxity I could see at other times, keeping that victory from me. But when I caught you unawares, quartermaster," he says, "your hips tilted to one side, a curve in your back. Your fingers against your cheek, splaying across your mouth to hide the smile your eyes showed anyway."

"You make me sound coquettish," Q snorts, nose wrinkling when he grins.

"Winsome," Bond says. "Entirely innocent and very naughty all at once."

"Attempting to conceal the latter beneath the former. A necessity considering -"

"Considering?"

"How often I'd thought of you already."

"Have you, then?"

"Daily, when forced to spend time repairing hopelessly broken equipment, or navigating you through secure locations," Q answers, dry, and for this, Bond curls his fingers and sinks them against Q's side, erupting laughter from his little quartermaster. He sputters a curse and squirms, helpless, cheeks blooming brightly and the bridge of his nose alight with a blush.

Bond relents and Q takes a gasping breath, both watching the other with a narrow-eyed smile.

"Of course I had. What more attractive man in my life could better suit a late-night need to satisfy physical urges? And the way you looked at me, whispering filthy intimations through our coms," Q purrs, and this time when he arches to invite Bond's hand back to his chest, it's not to ease a tickling. "You intoxicate me. You are a distraction."

“Good,” Bond grins. “Because I can think of nothing but you every damn day, and it seems only fair you fall to the same daydreaming.”

He ducks his head to kiss Q’s stomach but he doesn’t tease further, instead he moves from the couch, hushing a soft protest, and pads towards the kitchen. He returns presently with a heavy bottle of sweet brandy and declares it a nightcap.

“Tell me of your university years,” James asks. “Were you always so bloody bossy with every boy lucky enough to sink into your orbit?”

Q drags himself upward as Bond tilts dark amber drink into the crystal snifters. He tucks a leg beneath himself, the other drawn to his chest, elbow set atop his knee, coiled comfortably feline. He doesn't bother to reach for his glasses, but sweeps his hair from his face and holds his wild curls between his fingers.

"You mean those who didn't just immolate in the atmosphere when they came too close?" Q tilts a smile. "To answer your question directly, yes. Yes, always. Whether I was made entitled by my upbringing or possess a naturally demanding nature, I can't be certain. It hardly matters. I've the unfortunate tendency to carry the same expectations towards others as I do with respect to my work."

"I don't imagine people respond very well to being soldered," Bond says, as Q leans forward to accept his glass. Q's smile twists wry, though not displeased.

"Nor taken through troubleshooting, as it were. I told you, 007, I'm very good at some things and very unskilled at others. Maintaining relationships falls under the latter. I've little patience for a broken system that can't be fixed. And it's made me, as you've said more times than I care to recall this evening, 'bossy'. Thankfully, I'm now the boss," he says with a sly smile, chin and glass both lifted.

"You're being metaphorical," his agent tells him, settling to the couch again, turned to face Q.

"Am I?"

"And willfully obstructive."

"How dreadful for you," Q observes, pleased, as he savors a sip of brandy. "You want something more torrid, don't you?" Bond's smile is answer enough and Q returns it briefly before looking away in thought. He sucks his bottom lip between his teeth and hums, before blinking wide. "Oh! I used to shag my tutorials partner. He was lovely. And tall. Ruddy freckled skin and big shoulders and copper hair. We'd get heated over maths theories and scarcely make it out of our tutor's room before we had each other on the floor."

"I've never found maths so fascinating," Bond muses.

"Challenging," Q responds, eyes narrowing pleasurably. "There was little I loved more than tearing apart his work while bending him over my desk."

James listens, he delights in listening. This man, beautiful and lithe and little - with glasses too large and hair too messy, who has kept the agent entirely in thrall since the bloody art gallery - is a surprise at every turn. It’s rare that Bond can find someone to willingly dominate him. He is tall, he is built, he is - as Q has several times griped - the epitome of the masculine. And yet despite being more than willing to take control with women, he has, in his life, found that he rather enjoys being controlled by men.

He considers the lovely thing before him.

“What?” Q asks, and James realizes he was staring as they sat quietly together. He takes another sip of brandy and tilts his head against the back of the couch.

“You are lovely,” he proclaims, grinning.

"Prat," Q scolds him, hardly able to restrain his smile, eyes uplifting in the corners. Bond hums and his expression warms even more for the fond chastisement, and Q tilts his head to match the angle where Bond rests. "You enjoy it, don't you? My high expectations. Of course, the higher they are, the further there is to fall," he says, fingers following the soft hair around Bond's ear and behind, trailing down his jaw.

"There's no one else I'd rather follow," Bond murmurs, "barring another singular letter."

Q raises a brow.

"But you more," sighs Bond, laughing until their lips close softly together. "She's not got the right security clearance for my bedroom."

Drawing his knees together, Q twists until he's leaning back against Bond's chest, head on his shoulder, eyes turned upward toward him. He balances the snifter on his stomach and follows its rim with his finger, squeaking lazy circles. "What is it like?"

"My bedroom? I can show you right now."

"Piss off," grins Q as he takes a drink and softly hisses away the pleasurable burn. "Women, I mean."

"I daren't speak for M."

"Not her. Generally."

"If I were smart, I'd daren't speak for any women."

"Please," Q laughs, pushes his toes against the body-warmed leather. "I've never - I've always been attracted to men, only. I knew from the start and never bothered to try with girls. There’d have been a hardware malfunction in trying. Let me live vicariously through you. Call it research."

“Research,” Bond laughs, but he doesn't deflect the question again. He finishes his glass and reaches for the bottle to fill it again, topping up Q’s as he does. “Women are complicated creatures. Prone to metaphor and whimsy, hard to please and deliberate in being misunderstood. More, I think, so they can complain about it later than any other reason.”

“James.”

“They’re softer,” the agent murmurs, shifting to settle Q more comfortably against him. “Everything about them. I suppose delicate is accurate but it's more than that. They are feline things, they arch and turn their heads and wait for you to move first. Stubborn, always, gracious, gentle in everything but their words.”

"Challenging," Q echoes, smile widening as Bond's agreeable noise rumbles through them both.

"Viciously so, at times. Subtly so, at others. One often feels as if they've stumbled into one of those dreams where they're taking final examinations for a subject they've never studied before. Better still when the answers to each question change on a whim."

Q considers this, sipping thoughtfully, and shakes his head. "I've never experienced all that. I suppose I've never been seen as a potential suitor, so there was no reason to respond to me as they might, you know - you. And how is it when you're - you know," he says, cheeks sparked scarlet by his sheepish grin. "I feel as if I'm fourteen again, trying to divine answers from a naughty old book that speaks in euphemism."

“Sex?” Bond prompts, delighted when Q’s blush grows darker. He is hardly inexperienced in that regard, but bringing the word up in regards to women - for Q an entirely foreign concept, an entirely unknown code to break - reverts him to a young boy.

“Women are, though men would forever deny it to fuel their own bloody egos, incredibly capable at enjoying and relishing in their own sexual prowess. They hardly lay back and think of England. Modern women would sooner boot you out of bed than endure simply for the sake of endurance.”

“Have you ever been?”

“Booted?”

“Yes.”

“I have found myself on the streets as bare as the day I was born, forced to apologize upward towards a balcony where the doors weren't even open. They are cruel creatures if you treat them poorly. They care little for presentation alone, they demand wooing and follow through.” Bond sets one foot to the floor and draws the other knee up against the back of the couch as Q squirms back against him.

“They taste exquisite,” he admits. “Every inch. From their elegant throats to the downy hair between their legs. Pleasuring a woman is an act of worship, if you do it right, and well worth the effort.”

"You enjoy it," Q says, voice steady despite the faster tempo of his heart and the echo of its beating between his legs. 

"Enormously. Hopefully they do as well."

This time, Q lifts a brow.

"They usually do," grins Bond, and as he relaxes, Q sees in him suddenly the lady-killer so often whispered about in admiration by his peers in Q Division. There is cockiness in the width of his chest and in the tilt of his chin. A self-assured pride that only comes when one is certain they've the skills to back it up without question. He's good and he knows he's good, and Q imagines that the woman who booted him out probably quickly regretted it.

"Men are coarser, in so many ways rougher," Bond says. "Hairier, and the hair itself thicker. Sharper angles and harder bodies. Firm mouths and demanding cocks. Even inside of them, there's friction, a sort of constant combat."

Q swallows another sip of brandy to stop himself making a sound. "Quite," he finally whispers, fluttering fingers settling to his glass. "Bless," he adds with a laugh.

Bond sets a hand against Q’s chest and gently rubs there, a warm sort of petting until Q’s heart slows and immediately speeds again. The pleasure with which his agent speaks of women is not diminished when he speaks of men. He genuinely, with every fibre of his being, loves to make love to both. He is fascinating. 

“Do you miss it?”

“Mm?”

“Women?”

“It is always a misconception that if one enjoys both they must still prefer one,” James laughs. “I miss women by the memories I have of them. A specific woman, a specific night, not the gender itself. I hardly feel as though I am being denied it, I’ve simply happened to find a partner who is a man, now, and so femininity remains always there, always adored, but not currently enjoyed.”

Q chews the inside of his lip as his smile widens. A swift swig of his brandy runs hot down his chest and spreads thrumming beneath his skin, and he stretches to set his empty snifter on the table. He turns slowly to his knees and lays against Bond again, their bodies stretching long, entangling limbs and hands in hair and mouths and breaths sighed against the other's cheek.

"Lucky me," he decides, when there's room enough for their lips to move. He looks between his agent's eyes and grins, crooked. "I like hearing you talk about it."

"Sex?"

"Yes," Q tells him.

"With women?"

Q squints and nuzzles alongside Bond's cheek, touching a kiss to the corner of his lips. "That's an unexpected thrill which I’ll need to analyze in myself later, but not only that, no. You've a love of it all, a very genuine love. It's not a notched bedpost for you. It's poetry."

Bond hums and strokes fingers through Q’s soft curls. In truth, he does love it. More than the pleasure of the carnal act, it is a discovery of a person, male or female, it is a show of trust and vulnerability and it is fun. It is genuinely and entirely fun.

He ducks his head to kiss against Q’s temple, lower still to his cheek. He nuzzles there, affectionate and warm. 

“Charmer,” he sighs. “Beautiful, eloquent, bossy charmer, shall I tell you about you, then? How you feel? How you make me feel?”

“Only if you wish to be disappointed,” Q smiles, tilting his head when he’s nosed against, writhing coyly away from a kiss to shiver beneath Bond’s lips against his throat instead.

“It’s a very long list.”

“It will be the only thing that is, when you stir me to excitement and my body’s too inebriated to comply.” Q curls his arms between their bodies, settling beneath his agent’s embrace wrapped heavy around his shoulders. Though he’s only a hair shorter than Bond, he makes himself small against him, skinny and slight and altogether pleased to be entwined with such warmth. “Tell me,” he says, feigning a sigh.

“Don’t choke on your excitement,” Bond warns, amused. He sets his hands against Q’s back and rubs there, slow and sweet circles again and again. “You are a hurricane,” the agent says. “Constant movement, constant energy and determination to show just how high your stamina is.”

“Are you kindly telling me I am infuriating?”

“I am kindly telling you to shut up so I can continue to describe you, thank you very much, quartermaster,” Bond murmurs, kissing his hair before reaching for the bottle again, this time ignoring the glass entirely. “You feel like heaven. With your soft sounds and breathy shivers and the power behind it. Do you know how arousing it is to feel power submit when it is much more than you could ever hope to control?”

Q can't help the small sound that works its way needy from his throat. He raises his head enough to pull his lips against the stubble beneath Bond's jaw, tasting him in languid kisses and little sweeps of tongue. His fingers curl in Bond's tie.

"I do," he whispers. "I feel it when you tremble. You of such strength and capability. You who could overpower me with a gesture and do, often, with no more than a look. When you grasp me gentle and firm all at once, when you moan for me, when your cock drips because of me - there's not a substance in the world that could intoxicate me more."

Bond's lips part as Q takes his earlobe between his teeth, suckling softly.

"Sorry," Q sighs against his ear, grinning. "I'm supposed to shut up, aren't I?"

“No,” Bond’s throat clicks. “No, by all means, you have my utmost attention.” Another swig from the bottle draws a hum from the agent and he passes it to Q to have some more. They will both suffer cruelly tomorrow, hungover and horny as they navigate MI6 like phantoms.

He doesn’t care. He just wants to feel Q against him like this.

“Go on,” he prompts. 

Sitting up just a little, Q fusses as he finishes a too-large mouthful of brandy, wasted in a swig as if it were unpalatable beer rather than something that probably cost half his monthly pay. With a brisk shake of his head he grimaces, then laughs, and his cheeks are too warm and his chest is too cold and so he lays back down against Bond. The bottle is reached for but he resists, tucking it beneath his arm and studying his agent from so near.

"You are both sides of the equation, a statement in full. At times aggressor, at times the one who wishes to be caught. For me," Q says, more than a little pleased already, "I’m the latter, aren't I? I hardly appear ferocious -"

"Eight stone soaking wet."

Q snorts, grinning, and twists Bond's tie tighter around his hand. "And still you're the one who wants to lay beneath me. You’re all but begging for it. I’d make your legs tremble, 007, your stomach clench so hard with pleasure I’d feel it grow rigid beneath me. And around my -"

"Around your -"

"Cock," Q says, touching the tips of their noses together in little circles. "Inside you, fast. Deep. Hard,” he whispers. “I would make even the plush seats of our headquarters unbearable to you, Bond.”

“Excellent,” James whispers, eyes barely open and already aching for this, already wanting nothing more than to bend for Q, to go to his knees and be led along by his tie to wherever the quartermaster wanted him.

The thought is enough to make it hard for him to breathe.

“Do you think M would investigate were both of us to fall inexplicably ill for the last few days before the socially accepted weekend?” He asks, grinning when Q squirms against him again. He gasps when his tie is pulled even more taut, tilts his head back to bare his neck. “I would very much like… to help you prove your hypothesis regarding -”

“Hmm?”

“Me.”

When their mouths meet it's with a rough moan caught in their kiss, and a roiling of their bodies pressed together. The bottle of brandy slips to the couch and Bond takes it up skillfully before it can spill, passing it between his hands and to the table. His fingers snare tight in Q’s hair, bending him back, tilting his head, bringing him low again. Despite the predictable failure of his cock to properly respond, Q ruts into the crevice of Bond’s legs despite, shivering a sigh.

“You can piss off work whenever you want,” Q reminds him, pulling Bond’s tie taut to pull his agent’s mouth against his throat. “And I can work remotely. Isn’t it convenient that I’ve my laptop here with me?” He grins, laughing, suddenly the schoolboys they once were but never were together, combative physicality, fierce and carnal passion twisting their hands firm against the other and their kisses harder still.

Q’s rumpled shirt and sweater are pushed off over his head, hair fluffing into his eyes as he blinks past the drape of dark fringe. “Would it -” He stops, ducking a hiccup behind his hand. “Would it ruin the mood enormously if I said that I hadn’t taken you for a bottom?”

Bond laughs, an entirely unexpected sound, childish and delighted, and shakes his head before forcing his expression to stoic seriousness and nodding.

“Entirely,” he declares, and only barely manages to hold a snort back when Q regards him from all fours over him, hair a mess and half his clothes on the floor. “But I love being unpredictable. It adds to my charm.”

“Oh sod off,” Q laughs, catching another hiccup behind his hand and turning his head like a cat into the damp nuzzling kisses that pursue him. “I’m serious.”

“So am I. I've always enjoyed a man beneath me, but something about a man above, controlling and stubborn and immovable and demanding…” He smiles languidly, and Q brushes their lips together before closing firm. He is all of those things, undoubtedly - the same qualities that make him a skilled quartermaster and a lover of considerable quality. Slight as he may be, winsome and introverted more often than not, the snap of his voice when he needs something done has stirred Bond to illicit thoughts since they first began work together, and every day since.

Q reaches between them and flicks open the latch of Bond's belt. His agent arches to allow him to remove it, and it joins his own tops on the floor. Rather than free his burgeoning erection yet, Q instead pushes Bond's shirt up from his trousers in steady tugs. Skilled fingers, despite how the room spins when he shuts his eyes, begin the patient work of unfastening his shirt buttons.

The tie, however, he does not remove. Instead, when Bond's writhed free of his shirt, Q takes it in hand and holds him by it, whispering against his agent's mouth.

"My trousers, 007."

The agent laughs, as sleepy and blissfully drunk as the man before him.

“Yes, Q,” he purrs, keeping his chin raised as the tie holds him, and his eyes on Q’s, blown wide with pupil from alcohol and desire both. They won't make it bed today. Not at this rate. But hell if Bond won't enjoy what little time his body gives him to play.

The belt comes free and clicks against the tile as it's dropped, and large hands seek within to work the buttons and fly before cupping Q deliberately through his underwear. A playful squeeze and Bond’s hands move to the back, deliberately rubbing over Q’s ass as he drags his trousers down and relishes the feline curve of the younger man above him.

Slow, sinuous motions, an innate elegance in his movements made all the more beautiful for Q's lack of awareness of it. A graceful arch of his back brings his bottom firmer into Bond's palms; a stray finger stroking between his cheeks works Q's voice into a high release.

"God," Q sighs. "I want to ride you until the bloody sun comes up."

"Not before I get a turn," answers Bond, grasping his quartermaster's sharp hips to pull him near. He's graceful even in his unsteadiness, uncanny in his navigation of a sofa that wavers beneath them and a room that spins slow with the viscosity of their blood, thickened by brandy. Q pries open Bond's trousers and drags his legs up beside his hips before using his toes to push Bond's trousers to his thighs and beyond.

Not many things, even in his line of work, have achieved the result of rendering Bond helpless.

Q wears the mantle proudly, his smile sleek and eyes hooded, cheeks rosy with want and liquor both, lips flushed red and slightly parted. A finger hooks in Bond's underpants to bring them low and bare his stiffened cock, while Q's own...

Well.

"I'm trying," he whispers, as the prideful and wicked side of him gives way again to the sheepish boy, laughing shy.

Bond clicks his tongue. “At your age,” he starts, finds himself silenced with a gentle slap to his cheek and a kiss.

“Shut it.”

“Youth is known for virility,” James replies coyly, laughing and catching Q’s hand to kiss his palm when another disciplinary strike comes his way. He is delightful. Bond doesn’t want to think of how soon the new day will dawn nor how desperately he doesn’t want the bloody hangover that will come with it. Or the inevitable parting for the day.

“Up,” Bond commands with a smile, pushing Q to kneel and holding a hand against his taut stomach to keep him still. He leans in to kiss hot against Q’s stomach, to grope with uncoordinated lips down to the soft hair beneath his navel that leads down, down -

The tie tightens against his throat and Bond lifts his eyes, amused. Above him, the princely, posh young man's eyelashes fall long against his cheek, and his lips slack on a trembling breath. He holds Bond's tie aloft, his other hand outstretched at his side. Another kiss brings it closer to his belly. Another presses it to his stomach.

Slowly upward as Bond moves down, a nipple disappearing beneath Q's own hand as Bond mouths at the base of his cock. His stomach heaves in little puffs of breath, each touched by a moan; his fingernails curl against his chest and he tightens his grip on the tie as Bond breathes heat along his length. With a shudder and a laugh, Q whispers:

"Carry on, 007."

“Much obliged, sir,” the agent hums, slipping down the elastic of Q’s underwear and delighting in nuzzling into the musky warmth of his quartermaster. He isn't hard but it hardly matters. Bond takes him into his mouth and sucks long and languid, eyes closing in pleasure as he pulls off again.

He licks his lips and adjusts his position to keep his hands against Q’s hips, his underwear down just enough to rest behind his balls as Bond works to bring Q to pleasure this way. Long fingers seek back and gently spread Q as he works, enough to tickle against the clenching hole there and bring a twitch of heat to his cock. Q ducks his head to watch, breath catching.

Though the liquor - far more than Q ever allows himself - takes its toll, Bond has an effect on him that proves itself physically now, beyond even the swift patter of Q’s heart. Soft skin slips from Bond’s lips, sucked slow and released. Wet sounds shiver the quartermaster and tighten his stomach. Soft skin stiffens, standing taut against his agent’s tongue, glistening slick as Bond’s eyes lift to his.

Q cups a hand beneath his jaw to feel it work, his silk tie caught between them. Rocking his hips forward, Q doesn’t force, but instead seeks the hot pressure of Bond’s mouth around him as his cock lengthens. Slow thrusts press deep and Bond’s lips curve inward, outward, inward again in allowance for the gentle movement.

Certainly Q never expected to find such pleasure with another at the SIS.

Certainly Q never expected to find another so very unlike himself who stirs his heart to such heights.

A squeeze against Bond’s jaw loosens his hollowed cheeks and frees Q’s cock from between his lips. Bearing him back, Q shuffles loose from his bright green underpants, shoving them free with far less grace when they get stuck around his knobby knees.

“Hell,” he curses, laughing shy against Bond’s mouth. “For all I talked myself up into being a forceful, powerful partner,” he murmurs, brows knit in a play at sobriety, nevermind that he’s further from it than he’s perhaps ever been. “All that, and I’m stuck in my bloody pants.”

Bond just hums, still collared by his tie, he sets one foot against scrunched fabric and they both try to squirm free of it, laughing until they manage.

“I suppose you'll have to win me back over again.”

Q frowns, lips parted, and James grins, a crooked and pleased thing. He shifts to settle back on the couch again and watch his quartermaster before him, bared and tilting in a pleasingly, adorably tipsy way. He catches a hand against his side and laughs when Q squirms free from the tickling fingers.

“Frightfully dominant man, you realize we are both entirely useless.”

“What a bloody shame,” Q laments, genuinely dismayed but not without a little laugh, all the same. “I want nothing but debauchery and in being drunk enough to allow it, I’m too bloody soused to see it through.”

“Q,” Bond says, grasping Q’s cheeks and with a whipcrack to his voice that pulls Q’s back straight and his eyes wide. “Don’t go soft on me now.”

There’s a moment of seriousness, a held breath recalling those words from the heat of dire situations with an endless possibility of dismal results. A moment, suspended, before Q melts against Bond’s hands and sputters a laugh, sealed in a clumsy kiss. He reaches between them, fingers spanning the shaft of Bond’s cock, past velvet-soft balls snug against his body in arousal. He reaches further then, between his cheeks, to seek past coarse curls for the tender heat below.

They part their lips gasping, as Q retrieves his fingers only long enough to wet them between his lips, before plunging them roughly back to where they were and rubbing firm. Brows pressed together, kisses snared swift and unsteady, Q whispers, his voice low, “007, I know this area far better than you might dream that you do. Rest assured, I’ll see you limping after this.”

“Will you?” Bond pants back, but it’s hardly a complaint. He lets his foot drop to the ground again to open himself up. Hands skimming over Q’s back, Bond digs his nails in enough to leave marks, enough to have Q wince in pleasure and arch up into it. “Will it please you, then?” He gasps. “To see me limp through MI6 on my way to important meetings? Knowing your fingers up my ass did that?”

Q mutters a coarse curse, muffled against Bond’s throat as he rocks his whole body down against him. The leather couch squeaks beneath his knees as he ruts roughly forward, toes catching against the armrest to stop from sliding flat. He tilts his head to seek out the tender skin at the place where Bond’s pulse beats closest to the surface of his skin, sucking hard as he twists his fingers - two, at once - inside his agent.

“More than my fingers,” Q promises, drawing a sharp breath as he the tight ring of muscle around his knuckles yields with Bond’s moan. “Now’s not the time for questioning me, 007.”

Another groan and parted lips, head dropping back, though the tie tightens enough to pull his head back up again. He watches his quartermaster and adores him. He watches Q and wants nothing more than to kiss him again and again. He watches that young man and moans.

“Well bloody hurry up then,” he whispers.

“You’re hardly -”

“Time is of the essence, Q.”

Another curse and Q yields, with a soft sound sighed sweetly against the pale mark left on Bond’s throat. Bond isn’t wrong - he rarely is, despite being generally pig-headed and obstinate. In that way, they’re much a like, a clashing of hard heads and sharp horns together that has lead to this.

This display of demand and give.

This interplay of want and provision.

Q spits into his hand and neverminds the simpering posh voice inside himself that through the drunken haze tells him how entirely improper it is to do that. A quick stroke against his mostly-stiff cock pulls his belly a little tighter and his balls a little higher. Their eyes meet. Their gaze holds. Lips near enough that they can feel the other’s breath puffing softly, Q aligns himself to the blissful heat of Bond’s body and presses inward with a sharp jut of his hips.

Bond curses, sharp and loud and presses a hand to his eyes to push stars into them. It hurts. Good bloody lord it hurts. He curls his leg sharply up around Q and yanks him down to kiss.

“You’ll make a bloody cripple out of me, Q, Christ.”

“James -”

“Don’t you dare stop.”

Q squirms, planting his hands to the couch to either side of Bond’s head. It tugs his tie tight enough that Bond gasps and with a laugh, Q releases his grip on it and strokes his cheek, patient, always, despite how so often the tension of their disparate locations forces him to be brusque. Caring always, even more than for his precious equipment, that this particular 00 agent returns to headquarters intact.

And now, too, Q is no different. Despite his sharp entry, he moves slowly, centimeters at a time, shifting his hips in steady twists to seek out the encompassing heat of Bond’s body around him. A soft little sound, achingly tender, sighs against James’ lips. Q kisses him, not the plunging, ferocious ensnarements that gnarled their mouths together before; he is kind, considerate.

He cares, that Bond returns to London at the end of an assignment.

He cares, that in this first particular formation of joining, Bond feels his adoration.

The agent turns away, not out of displeasure, not out of pain, but simply to feel everything, here, now, before he embarrassingly blows his load between them. He reaches to touch Q’s lips, to draw over them, up to snare his hair next and twist, just enough to hear that sweet noise again.

“Tomorrow,” he growls. “When we both unfortunately come down with a bloody cold and stay here. Tomorrow I’ll show you fucking stamina. But tonight, now, you'll forgive me if -”

“Will I?”

Bond just laughs, helpless, brows drawn and lip between his teeth as he keeps and trembles. Close. So, so close.

“Please,” Q asks him, though it’s the word he wanted hear Bond beg from him, though it’s the word he’ll make him plead the next day if they can manage more than grunts and tea together. “Please, let me -”

No more than that and Bond’s release spatters thick between them, hot dollops of come caught between their weakly thrusting bodies. Q laughs, little and altogether too pleased, as he buries himself deep. It takes a scant thrust, another, and he shudders into orgasm with a groan, high voice dipping low as he spills himself within his agent.

His agent.

His 007.

His James, who grasps his hair and bends their mouths to join warmly together even as Q’s arms weaken with echoes of pleasure and he lays heavy against Bond’s chest.

Heavy arms wrap over him and hold Q down. Bond draws his knees up, his other foot from the floor to press to the leather. He groans, a long and low sound, and turns his head into Q’s messy curls.

“I think,” he mumbles, “that perhaps I may need another lesson. Tomorrow. But that was bloody brilliant.”

“Was it?” Q laughs, startled by the older man’s words, when he feels entirely lacking in every regard. It happened so quickly, minutes only, hardly the lasting, lingering pleasure he imagined.

But then, perhaps he’s overthinking. Q has a tendency to do that. Even now, his skin ripples with goosebumps beneath Bond’s hands. Aftershocks of pleasure course through him and tug his hips in weakening thrusts to savor but a moment more of heat, of pressure, of Bond around him and his cock leaking itself dry inside him.

He twists his hips and slides free with a harsh sigh and a grin, stretching long and curling small against Bond’s chest. Q rubs his cheek against Bond’s chest, a fine dusting of hair and his heart slowing to steadiness beneath. He kisses, near as he can, to that beating rhythm that rose and fell for him tonight.

And in the shower some nights before.

And in his office.

And perhaps will again, tomorrow, if they can manage anything beyond cuddling closely together. Even that, Q thinks with a secret little smile of his own, would be enough.


	5. Decryption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“My glasses, please.”_
> 
> _“Perhaps a map as well?” James asks. “They’re hardly hindering you on your deliberate and very welcome path between my legs.”_
> 
> _“Bond.”_
> 
> _“Q.“_
> 
> _“My glasses, please.”_

It’s too bloody early in the morning, enough that the light looks cold beyond the unmoving curtains and makes it entirely unappealing to get out of bed.

But he is out of bed.

Partially, anyway, hands typing away already on that infernal laptop of his. Elegant hands, quick hands, fingers that seem to barely skim the keys and eyes that never need to look down to them.

Earl Grey sends coiling smoke signals into the bright morning on the nightstand and Q’s hair is skewed a little to the left from how he had slept and not yet bothered to get a brush through it. Fingers might suffice. Fingers would suffice. So James reaches to drag a hand through familiar curls to feel them untangle against his palm.

“Bond.”

“Good morning,” comes the purring reply. “Surely it’s too bloody early in the morning for that, Q. It’s Saturday.”

A twitch in Q’s brow is the only immediate response, before he sweeps his hands across the keys again with a quiet clatter. He taps a little harder on the last, and rolls a shoulder. “Is it?”

“It is, typically a day when work is set aside.”

At this, Q spares Bond a look, amusement softening the corners of his eyes for a moment before he turns back to his computer. Drawing up his knees, he rests his skinny shoulders to the headboard and settles again.

“Typically,” he agrees, “in your part of the world, yes. Not so in mine. China’s only past midday. There’s a few hours yet to see their servers start to stir, but once they do -”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. He often doesn’t, and Bond wonders if he even realizes it, or whether his own thoughts continue on and he hears them within his own mind in place of speaking them aloud. Perhaps it’s deliberate, though considering his propensity to explain to the point of exhaustion, it seems unlikely to be a dismissal.

He stops typing long enough to reach for his mug, and James thinks back to the art gallery and the offhanded comment regarding Q’s ability to disrupt the world and do more damage than James can imagine before his first cup of Earl Grey. Perhaps somewhere in China someone is missing a lot of money.

The thought is delightful.

“But you’re not in China,” Bond points out, sitting up a little higher and wincing as the bruises tugging his skin taut at his side pull with the movement. “You’re in London. And in my bloody flat.”

“That hardly matters.”

“And if I call my house, my rules?”

“Mm, not really your house is it?” Q replies, eyes narrowing further in pleasure. He takes another sip of the fragrant tea, sucks his lips dry and sets the mug aside. “Government issue. Tax-funded housing for a company and agent that, in truth, doesn’t actually exist.”

“Schrodinger’s flat,” Bond replies dryly. “I have been in worse conundrums.”

“Like trying to get me to stop working,” Q suggests with a twitch of a smile and a few stiff taps against the keys.

“It’s proving more of a puzzle than I anticipated.”

“So is this encryption,” mumbles Q, holding the side of his thumb between his teeth in thought. He whispers _bollocks_ beneath his breath and blushes at his own mild curse. Or perhaps he’s blushing at the fingertip that trails along his arm, from slender wrist to the soft inside of his elbow. Perhaps he’s blushing at Bond’s lips parted on a warm breath against his side. “One more layer,” Q pleads, squirming. “Then I’m nearly there.”

“Nearly where?”

Q draws a deep breath, ready to fuel an explanation, but he holds it, glancing to Bond from beneath his glasses. He squints at the agent. “Do you really want to know?”

Bond raises his eyes and their gaze no sooner connects than Q averts his gaze to Bond’s hand, now curled slyly around the blanket across Q’s hips. “Merely curious what layer you’re focused on when -”

“Bond.”

“- this one -”

“Don’t say it.”

“- seems far more easily removed.”

Q makes a pained sound, fighting down a grin as best he can and failing beautifully. “You’re not going to leave me be, are you?”

“No." The word pours warm and draws longer than the one syllable it’s worth, and Q clears his throat before returning to the work at hand. Bond’s hand returns to work, and it’s thoroughly distracting.

The assignment had taken James to Cuba, this time, and despite Q’s dry - though accurate - comment about all the cars Bond would not only get to see but potentially get to hijack and destroy, he had missed the quiet mornings in London with his odd little hacker.

Not a hacker.

Genius.

Infuriating either way, with his deliberate and determined desire to do nothing more than work when Bond wants nothing more than to touch. Surely touch isn’t a lot to ask. Surely it’s hardly anything at all when more often than not James thinks of pinning the skinny little thing to the nearest wall and ravishing him.

He leans nearer to kiss against Q’s arm, slow and gentle, leaving a trail of warm breath as he moves higher to kiss him again. And again. And another to his shoulder, and one more just against his -

“Oh,” sighs Q, before he can stop himself, nearly spilling the laptop from his legs as Bond’s nose grazes the curve of his neck. He clutches the computer and in a breath forgets all about eavesdropping on exit nodes. A pleased, dismayed noise rises from his throat as Bond presses his lips to it. There’s some consolation, at least, in knowing that criminals - humans as a whole - are fallible. If he doesn’t get them this time, he will on the next attempt.

Would that his own reactions to his agent were so easy to crack. 

“I’d be a very poor quartermaster if I didn’t point out that your ribs are still healing, 007,” Q murmurs, lowering a leg to the bed and letting his computer slip aside. “And that rigorous physical activity in your condition risks damaging them further,” he adds, smile quirking higher. “Men your age need longer to recover.”

“I beg your pardon?” Bond’s eyes narrow to chips of ice for a moment and Q can do little more than take a breath before the agent shifts closer, careful enough not to do himself more harm, deliberate in showing Q that he is perfectly capable of enjoying himself, cracked ribs be damned.

He’s certainly dealt with that particular injury often enough. That and bruises to his ego, usually delivered effortlessly by the curly-haired wonder in bed with him.

“Men my age,” he repeats, words tickling hot breath just behind Q’s ear, “are perfectly capable of working around healing bones. Shall I show you -”

“No.”

“- how very capable I am in that regard, Q?” James grins, feeling Q wriggle against him but not away, never away. “But thank you, my lovely and sweet quartermaster, for your concern regardless.”

Q tries to muster a very severe look, one of deep disapproval at someone of his undoubtable skill and talent being referred to as ‘sweet’ and ‘lovely’. He tries, but he knows it looks more akin to a childish pout, which is quickly kissed away when Bond frames Q’s poked-out bottom lip with his own. He lifts a hand to his agent’s scruffy cheek, parting his lips when they’re spread by the older man’s kiss.

From the moment they met, electricity snapped sparking between them. Embers caught in every conversation after, stoked by brushes of fingers in showing and relinquishing equipment. Q imagined for a time that it was his own loneliness manifesting as misreading Bond’s signals. It had been years since he’d taken a partner in any sense, not since university, and the agent had a reputation, to say the least, of being flirtatious. No, that’s an understatement - he had a reputation of being a womanizing cad who can’t keep it in his pants.

He still has that reputation, to be fair.

But even in those early motions, Q was unconvinced. Surely Bond was not the sort to feel anything towards a slight, mop-haired scientist who only flourishes between lines of code and soldering circuits. Surely Bond was not the sort to suddenly grab Q by his skinny legs and hoist him against the wall of the SIS laboratory, holding him in place with rough kisses and muttered chastisements.

He’s mostly convinced now that in this particular series of assumptions, he was incorrect.

The laptop nearly tumbles from the bed as Bond slips between Q’s legs, the blanket caught between them. Q tries to curse between their lips but Bond’s reflexes snap quick to save the computer from falling. He bends, enough to lower it away, out of sight, and Q turns his head aside to watch it almost mournfully.

“Left to your devices, Bond, the country would fall to ruin,” he complains, drawing a leg up against Bond’s hip and framing his face with slender fingers. “You’ve certainly done a number on me already.”

“I can do a whole number of other things to you,” James points out, smile almost predatory before it soothes to warmth again. Q is a stubborn thing, as much, if not more, than the agent himself. “Before you have your first cup of Earl Grey.”

“Must you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I missed you,” Bond points out, head tilting and brow rising as though to challenge Q to doubt him. “I tend to do that, you know, when I go on assignment and you stay in bloody London. Just a voice in my ear, and you _never_ talk dirty.”

“Should I?” Q laughs, genuinely startled by the mere suggestion of it. “When I’m in a room full of people working? When all I can hear half the time is ceaseless gunfire?”

“Every frustrated little sigh sends a shiver through me,” Bond purrs. Q’s fingers lace through his hair and grip it just enough to make his voice crack on a low moan.

“You’re meant to be paying attention,” Q scolds him. “No wonder everything I give you comes back shattered, if it comes back at all.”

“You’re wonderfully distracting.”

“And you’re a disaster,” Q sighs, cheeks warm as he sinks lower into the bed, Bond heavy atop him. Q brings both legs up, squirming as if to free himself, relishing when he’s kept in place and a warm kiss holds almost bruising beneath his jaw. He considers the request. He considers the way his cock responds despite his admonishments. “What would I even say to you?”

James hums, eyes half closed and body poised like a cat above his genius boy.

“That you want me, perhaps?” He suggests, leaning nearer to mouth against Q’s quickening pulse. “You’re very to the point, darling, I’m sure that you could manage.”

“Bond.”

“Tell me the things that you will do to me once I come home,” he continues.

“Including or limited to the chastisement regarding my broken equipment?”

“I love when you scold me.”

Q’s nose wrinkles a little when he smiles, tilting his cheek against Bond’s and rubbing softly over his stubble. Beyond the lurid demands of his lover, Q revels in the passing confession that when Bond is away, he misses him. He thinks of him. Despite the smart remarks and brusque curses that grunt into the communications devices, he is glad to hear him when Q passes on instruction. It was almost easier to accept that he rarely considered him outside of London, sharing his bed with all manner of informants and those Bond would call informants just for the excuse to bed them.

Almost easier.

Q allows his preference for this truth, instead.

“I should insist that you repay every hour I spent making the tools you gleefully break with an hour in bed with me,” Q snorts, “but then we’d never get anything done.”

“God, yes, darling - just like that,” Bond murmurs against him, reaching to slip the blanket away from between their bodies.

“Perhaps it would give your destruction pause were I to tell you -”

“Were you to tell me?”

Q makes a fussy sound and tilts their cheeks together again, breathing in the familiar scent of his agent as he whispers shy against his ear, “Were I to tell you that when you are away, and I cannot sleep, I try to satisfy the empty places you leave behind. My fingers are woefully inefficient.”

It is Bond, this time, who curses, a low and deliberately articulate rosary of expletives against Q’s collarbones.

“That,” he murmurs. “That would guarantee the destruction of at least one of your lovely little gadgets and the end to rather a few mindless hitmen along my way.”

“At once encouraging and discouraging,” Q sighs, and James presses to him, chest to chest, hips to hips, as he continues to kiss his skin in sleepy worship. “I do mourn the loss of my hard work, you know.”

“I highly appreciate it,” Bond replies. “It’s gotten me out of quite terrible situations so far, and I think of you every time.” A hum, nosing against the goosebumps that rise against Q’s skin. “‘Q will have my head for this. If I’m particularly lucky, my ass.’”

Q’s voice breaks from him before he can stop it, a pitchy little moan sustained longer by the sensation of Bond’s body rocking firm against his own. He runs his hands down his agent’s neck, over muscular shoulders and his strong back. He skims lightly past his ribs and further down, over the swell of Bond’s bottom. Grasping firm, he presses their hips together, stiff cocks caught between their bellies. The pale green of Q’s eyes is nearly edged out by pupil, nearly hidden beneath hooded lids and long lashes.

“I can have that without you breaking my things,” Q reminds him, grinning crooked as he nuzzles into a languid kiss, lips twisting smoothly together before parting to allow their tongues to twine. He lacks the strength of Bond, the physical prowess unparalleled, the bravery and bravado. But his cleverness is just as vital to seeing their work through to the end; his ‘gadgets’, dismissively called such, are paramount to their shared victory.

And in that way, Bond needs Q. In that way, Q keeps his agent safe, even a world away.

“I miss you,” he whispers. “I miss you when you’re in the field. I don’t sleep when you’re away, James - I worry. I work. And then I worry more. Do you’ve any idea how many nights I’ve lain awake doing little more than watching your location ping? Imagining you asleep, I hope, imagining you caught or wounded, more often. Of course, half the time you’ve shed the tracker no sooner than you’ve left headquarters, but -”

“You miss me,” Bond says, almost asking to hear it again. Q pushes against him and they turn, Bond to his back and Q atop, watching him with furrowed brow. He doesn’t tell his agent the statistics of agents marked as ‘missing in action’, never to be recovered. He knows them intimately, to the dire hundredths.

He knows that any time they have together is unlikely. He knows how likely it is that time they share is borrowed.

“I miss you,” Q says again, managing a rueful smile. “I miss you bothering me while I work and I miss you touching things you oughtn’t at the lab. I miss how scotch tastes when you kiss me. And,” he sighs, put-upon, “I miss your -”

“My...” Bond coaxes.

“Your ass,” Q whispers, grinning.

James laughs, shifting to let his arms drape loose above his head, shifting so Q lays less against his sore side and more over his middle. Then he arches up to kiss him, one hand down to curl through messy hair and hold his quartermaster against him.

“It misses you too,” he tells him earnestly and they both snort.

It is a lazy Saturday, and Bond has little more than reports to complete before he returns to headquarters. Q is likely to have much more pressing work but neither seem to care much when they can, instead, remain twined this way. James rocks up against him, slowly and deliberately, groaning in low animal pleasure.

“All day in bed,” he requests. Commands, Q would wager. “All I bloody want to see today is you.”

Q ducks his head, almost bashful - hell, always bashful when he’s praised that way. He takes acclaim for his work with a knowing smirk, but to be appreciated for more than his mind is a rare thing indeed. Skinny body, hairless chest, limbs forever boyish and smooth. Hardly the ferocious partner that would equal Bond’s rugged masculinity.

And yet there is little doubting the effect Q has on him, when Bond’s cock strokes in lazy thrusts against his hip.

The quartermaster sinks against his agent, lips dragging into a deeper kiss, mouths curling hard together. He reaches between them to take both their lengths in hand, wrist curling in an elegant twist to stroke in tandem. A moan parts their kiss and Q ducks away from another, kissing over scars and past bruises down Bond’s hard-honed body. He fusses when his hair is caught and held, hands against Bond’s thighs, and when he murmurs he sighs heat against his cock.

“My glasses, please.”

“Perhaps a map as well?” James asks. “They’re hardly hindering you on your deliberate and very welcome path between my legs.”

“Bond.”

“Q.“

“My glasses, please.”

“Of course, darling.” James smiles and reaches to slip the thick-framed things from Q’s face, carefully clicking them closed to set to the bedside table beside the cooling tea. He nearly knocks the cup over, in a moment of uncharacteristic gracelessness, when the heat of Q’s mouth dizzies him. The bow of his lips circle plush around his shaft, reddening with each stroke along its length, leaving behind glistening damp as Q bobs languidly lower each time he ducks his head.

His tongue curls against his agent’s pulse, thumping harder along the the thick vein. Another curse breaks up the quickening rhythm of Bond’s breath. Q lifts his eyes to watch Bond succumb willingly to Q’s wiles, arm across his eyes, his other hand resting on the back of Q’s head. Bond’s prowess in bed is well-known, substantial in seduction and sexual skill as well as girth and length. Q had heard tell of it, endlessly.

And Q has yet to stop feeling delight in his own particular abilities being such a surprise to Bond.

James groans. Q echoes the sound back to him and smiles when Bond’s entire body shudders. There are many facets to the man’s sexual hunger. In the mornings he is sleepy, always hard to get out of bed and motivate to do anything. Afternoons are his time of choice for distraction. When he himself isn't working, he squirms his way between Q and his laptop.

Evenings are James’ forte in sexual expression. Languid and long, deep and hard, bloody relentless in his pursuit for what he wants. But for all his preening pride regarding his reputation, he is hardly a selfish lover.

Q can certainly never complain about that. 

But as James has him in the evenings, so Q owns him in the mornings. Entirely, explicitly, contentedly.

“Christ, Q.”

He shivers at the name. It isn’t his own, but he’s nearly forgotten his own by now anyway. It’s unsafe to have such things known to others, especially field agents; unsafe to even remember himself what he was called before he was simply a title. A letter. James has never called him anything else and has ever asked to know.

He is his quartermaster, first and foremost.

Q bows his head and sucks so hard his cheeks hollow, from base to head and down again, fist curling to stroke what his mouth does not. Bond’s unyielding, taut cock pushes hard to the back of his throat, Q’s tongue splayed against it, lips parting in a long and lurid lick. He knows James sees it by the strangled sound of pleasure he makes. He knows he sees it too - by the way his breath hitches - when Q circles the swollen scarlet head with the tip of his tongue, slipping back his foreskin to bare him.

With a little _pop_ and a thumb against his bottom lip, Q tilts away from Bond’s cock and watches with pleasure as it settles thick and heavy to his twitching stomach. His fingertips walk the inside of James’ thigh as Q settles to sit on his heels. Squinting, as much as for his lack of glasses as in thought, he tilts his head to watching his agent nearly undone beneath him.

“Your ass or mine?” Bond asks, interrupting Q’s approximation of the same question. The quartermaster laughs, bright and sudden, eyes wide.

“Don’t tell me that line actually works.”

“You know,” James murmurs, “it actually does.”

“And the answer is usually -”

“Rarely mine,” the agent grins, pushing himself up on his elbows with a low groan as he strains his damaged ribs again. “Though I would hardly mind the compliment, it wouldn’t do to have someone claim something already claimed, hmm? Frightfully rude.”

He draws his thumb against his lip and tilts his head at the young man knelt before him. In truth should neither of them choose the arduous task - hardly - of penetration today, Bond wouldn't much care. Even rubbing himself off against this man, hearing his sweet and needy sounds is enough. He extends a hand and Q leans against it, cheek cupped by calloused fingers and drawn closer. Holding himself above Bond, fingers curled into the sheets, they gather the other into a kiss, sweeping and soft.

“Claimed,” Q echoes with a snort, grinning as he stretches to fumble in the nightstand for whatever’s left of the lube.

“Entirely. By Queen and country -”

“I can’t imagine she’s as good at this as I am.”

“- and you.”

“You’d do well to remember it,” Q murmurs, slicking himself before tossing the bottle aside again. “Next time you bark into the transmitter. They’re amplified, you know, you don’t need to actually shout at me from Cuba.”

“I’ll be sure to whisper seductively next time,” Bond tells him, eyes wrinkling as he smiles, teeth not shown regardless of how truly delighted he is. Always so bloody British. “‘Sweetheart,’” he imitates, voice purring. “‘Darling. Would you awfully mind getting me the hell out of here? Just when you have a moment, no bloody rush.’”

“Shut up.”

James grins. “Shut me up,” he suggests, moving to set his thighs on either side of Q’s where he kneels.

Cock in hand, Q guides himself until he feels tight muscle relax, and Bond groans as blunt pressure becomes a slick fullness inside him. Q’s conscience always nags at him about using protection, but there’s unlikely to be anyone cleaner in the country considering how often they’re both subject to physicals. Bond goes in almost weekly, and Q has certainly pulled up his results more than once. There’s something delicious and dangerous to the sensation that neither shares with any other, a risk without any, and so very warm.

So wonderfully, intensely warm.

Q shudders, voice rising high and dropping off lower as he moans, arms trembling to hold himself up as pleasure washes over him in waves and curls his hips, thrusting slow. He traps his bottom lip between his teeth and releases it with a puff of breath. All around, Bond holds him fast, arms around his shoulders, legs against his narrow hips, muscles begging him inward in tugs of pressure.

“007,” Q says, the same voice he uses when they’re on assignment. Crisp consonants and clipped words, imperious and expectant. “You’ve ten seconds and counting to spread your legs.”

Bond groans, but he obeys his quartermaster, setting one foot then the other to the mattress, arching his hips as he spreads his thighs and lies prone, muscles tense and trembling as he settles down and watches Q above him. Always such a bossy little shit, it’s because of that that Bond was always so bloody intrigued by him, always took the time to deliberately get under his skin.

Well worth the effort in the end.

“And you’ve ten seconds to start bloody moving,” Bond responds with a gruff laugh, drawing a thumb warmly beneath Q’s eye.

A laugh collapses their kiss together as Q bends across Bond and curls his back, pressing inward, far as he can go, and sliding slowly back out again. Languid and deep, rocking delicious pressure against his prostate, Bond groans relief at the sensation. Too long apart, doing work in which they take pride but always at the cost of quiet moments like these, they join together now in lazy movements, panting against the other’s mouth, kissing when they can. Bond runs his fingers through Q’s messy curls and grasps them just enough to hear his voice lift and feel his hips jerk.

“007,” sighs Q, resolve faltering to maintain his prim intonation, “I need to know what you’re feeling, now. Bond - James,” he laughs, shivering closer to release as he takes Bond’s cock in hand. “Tell me -”

Bond hushes him, stroking his hair and pressing their foreheads together as Q thrusts a little faster, a little more erratically.

“You talk too much,” he whispers, smiling when Q hums a fussy sound of displeasure. “You’re distracting enough without your pretty words.” He leans up to kiss Q again, murmuring to him that he is tired, he hurts, he’s done, as he always is, with the bloody service and the bloody country and everything at all. He tells him that if Q touches him like that again he will blow his load and make a mess of both of them.

Q wants to make another joke but all he can do is laugh, helpless to the warm, rumbling purr of his agent, grasping his hair and gasping against his cheek. He turns his wrist and squeezes, breath cutting short as Bond’s teeth clench and his body follows in turn. They lose themselves to the other, for an instant suspended in breathless silence; for an instant, only, before Q’s hitched moan and Bond’s snarl echo the sudden uncoiling of their bodies. Wetness seeps between Bond’s legs where Q’s hips buck unsteadily. Wetness spreads against their bellies as Bond’s release dollops thick.

Decryption requires understanding of code - not computer code, but ciphers and puzzles. An interlocking network of secrecy, wherein each layer resolved brings one closer to the revelation of information hidden within. To fully understand the truth, one must have a key, that will lay bare before them what is unknown to others but those who first encoded.

They worked, for months, to reveal layers of the other. Testing for weakness that would give, brute-force pressure applied snapping at each other from far-flung locations, subtle manipulations to discover another hint to their own internal ciphers, only to find that they held the other’s key all along. Only they know what the other keeps encrypted to all others.

Only they can reveal it, in moments like these, their truth bared between them.

Q is careful not to lay atop the injured agent as with a wince and a flicker of pleasure, Q works himself loose. He draws against his less-battered side, instead, skinny leg twined over Bond’s thigh, hand against his cheek to settle their hearts with soft touches of lips. When their eyes finally open, just enough to see the other, Bond’s smile tugs wrinkles to the corners of his pale blue gaze. Q’s nose wrinkles. He draws a breath but Bond sets his finger to his lips, and Q kisses it, blinking.

“Before you say something lovely, that you’ll surely come to regret -”

“Don’t,” whispers Q. “Please don’t -”

“I’m sorry.”

Q’s throat clicks as he swallows, brow knitting. “Not the -”

“Radio,” Bond sighs. “The little one. It’s gone.”

Q was going to welcome him home, offer him tea and breakfast, perhaps even draw a bath. He was going to, and now he can do no more than squint, and whisper sullenly, “You are a bastard, Bond.”

James can’t deny it, so he doesn’t, turning, instead, to face the sulky man at his side. He strokes his face, watches as the displeasure grows briefly to anger, then to resignation, then to tired, put-upon acceptance.

“Shall I get it back?”

“From Cuba?”

“It’s hardly a trip,” Bond says, and Q snorts, shaking his head and burying it against the pillow with a groaning sigh.

“I will make one, one day,” he mumbles, “that I implant beneath your skin. And I guarantee that you will lose that one as well.”

“Always so worried I won’t come home?” The agent asks, and immediately catches his mistake when Q tenses and hums out a breath. “Consider,” he says instead, “how you have not been able to get rid of me since that damned art gallery. Do you know that half the time I dig my way through the most ridiculous situations so that I can get home to this.”

Q says nothing, just presses incrementally closer. “And the other half?”

“The other half of the time I dig my way out hoping for a scolding,” James laughs, kissing curly hair and the warm skin beneath. “There is nothing, my terrible genius, that will stop me getting back to London, to you.”

“Not for Queen and country?” Q asks, with a rueful little smile.

“Sod the Queen and sod the country,” answers Bond. He strokes Q’s curls back from his face and kisses the bridge of his nose. “You.”

Q lifts his chin and seeks out a kiss, another, one against his cheek and then his jaw as he nuzzles closer, and allows his agent’s arm to tug him near. He settles, perhaps to sleep now that he can again; perhaps to sleep, so that he can wake once more and find Bond still close. His hair ruffles beneath James’ breath, and he smiles.

“Far be it from me, then, to not make you another,” he says, “and ensure you come home again.”


	6. Footprinting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Now pay attention, 007. You’re to engage in a mission of particular delicacy…”_
> 
> _“God, don’t do the voice.”_
> 
> _“Particular delicacy, with relation to a sensitive area. I’ll need you to listen closely, otherwise the assignment will be ended before it’s begun.”_
> 
> _“You want me to go down on you,” Bond confirms._
> 
> _“Crude, 007, very crude,” Q scolds him, before he grins and opens his eyes just enough to regard him. “Yes.”_

Though Bond has several days off to recover, Q does not. They agree to meet at the house, keys handed over with a smile and a play at reluctance when a kiss is bestowed in thanks for the allowance. Q walks to the nearest station and Bond takes the car, leaving the city behind and rather too happy to do so. He has enough packed to stay until the weekend, longer, still, if Q insists - he can hardly deny him.

The house is just as homely in daylight as it is at nighttime, and James makes sure to send a message to Q letting him know that yes, he is here, yes, he has the keys, and no, he has no idea how to unlock the alarm system and could he possibly do it from the office so the entire street doesn’t go up.

A moment, two, and there is a soft beep suggesting it’s safe enough to enter, so he does.

Desmond always greets him first. Desmond seems to do nothing but find ways to molt his long grey fur all over Bond’s suits. Even in jeans and a button-down, the agent regards the squeaking little feline with narrowed eyes and a long denial before bending to offer him a palm to nuzzle into. He kicks his boots away by the door, hangs up his coat, and takes the bag upstairs to the bedroom.

Peter darts up alongside him, a little shadow quick to accompany wherever Bond goes. Even with everything he’s done in his power to dissuade their attention, the cats adore him. He imagines they do so to spite him, in fact, leaving their fur on his things and creeping to his chest to sleep when he’s out cold. Q takes enormous pleasure in pointing out their affection to him, frequently and with delight, and if there is a vast feline conspiracy afoot, Bond is certain Q is the mastermind behind it.

The room is much as he remembers it, though lacks his little engineer curled lanky beneath the blankets, as Q lay watching him go the last time he was here. Instead, the covers are pulled to precision tautness, wrinkleless but for the indentations of paw prints across the surface. The casual clothing, occasional book, and sundry minor comforts left here have been neatly put away, occupying spaces within the closet and the corner of the desk, respectively.

There is only one item out of place, Bond notes, as he drops his bag beside the closet to unpack it. A thickly knit blue cardigan that he left when the house becomes chilly. Laundering, perhaps, or placed somewhere else.

It hardly matters. He’s content enough without it, to occupy the space the carries in it the spectral scent of his quartermaster, undoubtedly bent over some gadget in Q Branch or snapping direction at someone else making one. Bond bothers to hang his things only so Q doesn’t spend his time doing it when he returns home, and then with a satisfying flop, he sprawls across the wide bed and groans.

Desmond shows up first.

Then Peter.

Both cats pad happily, silently over the familiar sheets and over his familiar frame. Peter settles beneath Bond’s chin, curling up tiny and immediately contented, despite Bond’s grumble and soft curse for the cat to just get off. He doesn’t, and Bond knows he won’t. Though Desmond is the ghost that haunts his suits and finds a way to get his fur on everything Bond owns - toothbrush included - Peter is the spectre that warms him no matter where he lays.

Peter, compared to Desmond, is a very small cat, though Q claims he is nearing his sixth birthday and quite fully grown. Entirely black but for the strange overtones of gold when he stretches in the sun, he is a cat that is very vocal, very social, and very possessive. Having claimed Bond as his official sleeping mat, he rarely leaves his side when Bond spends the night at Q’s.

In a way it’s a good thing, really, Peter’s fur doesn’t show up as glaringly on his clothes and his presence keeps the much furrier and much more cuddly cat at bay.

He supposes he could be claimed by a worse feline.

He supposes he could be claimed by a worse lover, just as well.

They’re inherently a conflict of interest, and well beyond the always-questionable choice to partner with one’s co-workers. Q prefers pristine quiet and nearly eerie calm. Bond will be lucky to keep his hearing past fifty considering how often he’s nearly had his eardrums blown out. Q won’t venture farther than the tube will take him. Bond spends the better part of his year in far-flung reaches of the world. Computers rather than guns. Thought rather than action. Giving commands rather than taking them.

That in particular has been a pleasant surprise, in unexpected ways. Everything about Q, in all their contrasts, has been a delight to discover.

James runs his fingers absently through Peter’s short fur and considers the ceiling. Beside them both, Desmond settles upon Q’s pillow and curls up enough to appear to be nothing more than a grey, slightly battered cushion. With a put-upon sigh, James reaches to sink his fingers through his long fur as well.

It isn’t long before both cats are purring like motors against him and all Bond can do is sigh and let them.

An hour passes, perhaps more, and he dozes. Peter isn’t far enough down his body to hurt his ribs and Desmond doesn’t climb atop when Bond is so claimed by the other cat. It is comfortable, if he’s honest, strangely welcome considering he truly, genuinely, does not like cats at all. Any cats. 

Except maybe these, though he would never admit it.

Around midday he pushes himself to stand, muttering to Peter when he digs his claws into Bond's shirt to hold him down, and he goes downstairs to make something to eat. Something simple. A sandwich, a cup of tea. He checks the water for the cats before settling at the table to have his lunch.

He should enjoy the quiet. It’s a respite from a devilishly hard job that takes its toll on mind as much as body. He should be able to savor a quiet afternoon in the suburbs, with only this squeaky, purring company.

He should.

He’s halfway through his sandwich when he takes out his phone, surprised to see a message already there:

_Don’t forget to eat. There’s things to make sandwiches in the refrigerator._

Bond hums, eyes narrowed, and considers the possibility that beyond a military-grade alarm system Q also has cameras in his home. He looks towards the ceiling again as though seeking for them before returning to his meal, finishing it before sending a reply, typed quickly with one finger as he finishes his tea.

_It’s almost like you know me, Q._

It’s unusual for him to stay in touch with people during the day. Once his phone is destroyed after a job, Bond is content not to have another until some sleek new machine is passed his way as he makes his way through Heathrow and out to who the hell knows where. This is novel. This is strange.

_How many companies have you managed to derail before your first cuppa?_ He asks.

There’s a pause, not long, before the response blinks back at him: _Not enough._

James smiles despite himself, stretching with a wince to lean back in the chair, as the phone alights again.

_How are the cats? And your ribs?_

He considers calling.

He doesn’t call.

_Are you partaking in your favourite activity and watching me meander around your house, Q?_

The pause is notably longer this time, before Q answers: _Some of us have work to do._

_That isn’t an answer._

_You-know-who has already pulled me aside today, and with obvious implication in her undertone, advised me that your recovery and well-being are of paramount importance, and under no circumstances are you to engage in any strenuous behavior. I hadn’t the heart nor voice to tell her._

Bond smiles, a lazy and sinuous thing, and sinks further in his chair. He can feel Desmond meander through his legs, can hear the little squeaks for attention that he tries to ignore.

_I suppose all that’s left is to show her._ He types back. _I have eaten. I have dozed. The cats are patiently waiting for me to die to eat my lifeless body, but otherwise all is well, I suppose._

He waits for a response from the singular letter on his screen - from the singular man on the other end of their connection. He waits long enough that the brief thrill of midday conversation, mundane and wonderful for that, begins to ebb and he finishes his tea. Checking for cats beneath his chair, Bond scoots it back from the table and starts to stand, as his screen illuminates.

_I miss you terribly._

The confession is enough to make his heart beat a little faster. Anyone else and he would sneer at the words, ignore the message, reply with something generic, mundane, make excuses and find a way to lose their number, but here.

Here.

_Git._ He replies, smiling when he sees the little icon suggesting a message is being typed back. He adds, before his single-word reply can start a barrage of displeasure or apologies: _The bed is too empty without you. Come home._

He imagines the particular shade of pink that warms Q’s nose when he blushes; the way he turns the backs of his fingers against his cheek to cool it away. He thinks of the way Q’s leg jiggles when he’s deep in thought, and before Bond gets so far as to imagine the way his thighs tremble when they’re close to climax, he gets his answer.

_She did say that your well-being is of paramount importance. Home in an hour._

James laughs, a low and warm sound that draws Peter close to press his little button-feet against James’ jeans, stretching himself to his not very impressive capacity.

“Hold on,” he sighs, taking his dishes to the sink. “Impatient bloody things.”

The dishes are done and set to drip dry. The cats don’t need to be called to follow - they would even if James tried to shut them out of the bedroom. Upstairs, he bends with a wince to pull a book from his bag, his glasses too, and moves to settle back in bed again. Peter is immediately on his perch, spreading his lithe little body against Bond’s chest. Desmond watches them a moment before returning downstairs, on door duty for when his owner comes home.

It’s that sound exactly that awakens him again, hardly a sentence read in the book left to fall by the wayside. Bond is alert in an instant, in a still somewhat unfamiliar place to him, and he jerks hard enough to startle Peter to fleeing and pull a muscle in his side. Q’s murmurs to Desmond pause when Bond groans a curse into the pillow, rubbing his side.

Sock-softened footsteps fall against the stairs and Q’s smile is wide by the time he reaches the doorway, uncoiling a scarlet scarf from around his throat. The location of Bond’s missing blue jumper is made clear as he squints at his quartermaster all but drowning in it. Q raises a brow at the look.

“Doing well, I see. M’ll have my head for this if you’ve broken something.”

“Tell her to blame the damned cats,” James mumbles, but he hardly means it. He settles on his back again, pushing up his glasses as he rubs his eyes and lets his book close beside him, page unheeded. Peter returns with a silent bound to the bed and Bond makes a show of pushing him away before resigning himself to be slept upon and letting the cat curl where he wants.

He watches Q, eyes warm and sleepy still, and holds out a hand for him.

“Lovely sweater,” he says.

“Quite warm, really. Little too large though,” responds Q, setting his shoulder-bag to the floor beside his nightstand and allowing the sleeves to slip down over his hands. “Rather like a tent,” he muses. He kneels to the bed and allows his hand to be grasped, sleeve and all. “But I suppose the elderly -”

“Don’t you start.”

“They do tend to opt for comfort rather than fashion. Softer on the skin,” he adds with a grin as Bond tugs him close. They kiss softly, a hand against the other’s cheek, the quartermaster’s oft-chewed bottom lip held between Bond’s own. Peter does not yet yield his post, adjusting to lay on Bond’s side when he turns to face Q.

“You should have called him Polyp,” he mumbles, and Q clicks his tongue.

“That’s awful.”

“He has decided he is firmly attached, now, regardless of clothes or lack thereof,” Bond complains, but there’s hardly genuine displeasure behind it. The little cat spreads like liquid against Bond’s side, and where his claws don’t dig sparks of sharp pain against his skin, he warms his sore ribs nicely. Q gives the sleek little creature a stroke along his back and a scritch against his whiskers, before letting his hand cup Bond’s cheek again. He rubs a thumb against his whiskers, too, rough stubble from not needing to shave now that he’s temporarily off-duty.

“You should be grateful for it,” Q tells him.

“For the fur and the sounds and the sharp claws? Which part should I give thanks for first?”

Q’s nose wrinkles when he grins, bright, teeth a little too large for his mouth and rarely revealed behind his typically terse smile. “That they like you so much. Had they responded to you with disinterest, I’d have questioned what they know and I didn’t. Had they responded with outright displeasure, our first night would have been a cordial nightcap between co-workers and you’d have been on your way.”

“You trust your cats more than you would trust what I tell you?”

“Do you even have to ask me that?”

Bond smiles, turning his head into the hand that holds him. He is stupidly tired. It’s too early in the bloody day to be in bed, it’s too early to be surrounded by bloody cats. He should be stronger than this.

But then again, who does he have to impress?

“Get in here,” he says.

Q laughs, a little fluttering sound, and acquiesces. He pushes his legs out in a long stretch and lays sideways, facing his ailing agent. With more than a little amusement, he runs a thumb across a dark circle beneath Bond’s eye, across his brow. He follows the bridge of his oft-broken nose and over lips that part against the pad of his finger.

“Clarity has never been your strong suit, 007,” he murmurs, eyes narrowing in delight. “Get in where, precisely?”

“Get into your bed,” Bond repeats. “With me. Under the sheets. Preferably naked. If possible scare the cats out of it and warm me instead.” He raises an eyebrow as though to ask if that was sufficiently predictable as an answer, finds a grin as his only response and kisses soft against Q’s fingertips.

“So early?” Q muses, his own lips parting in sympathy as Bond wraps a longer kiss around the tip of his finger. “It’s hardly even time for tea, let alone sleep.”

“I said nothing about sleep. I was very clear on that.”

Q sucks his bottom lip as if it might ease his smile, but it does little good. With a polite tip of his head, he removes from his trouser pockets two phones and another device that Bond takes pains not to ask about. They’re set aside to the nightstand and Q lifts the blankets from his side of the bed - they’ve settled into that now, too - before Bond clucks his tongue.

“You said preferably,” Q protests, even as he reaches to unfasten his belt and his trousers in turn. He twists lithe from them, hoping to all hell that it’s an attractive maneuver. He’s self-conscious enough about his skinny, pale body at night, under cover of darkness. It’s not helped at all now by the afternoon light filtering through the windows and the transparent curtains draped across them.

Bright yellow underwear today, lined with white around the hems. Always the same sort of briefs, in an array of bright colors. His socks match them, in a fashion, nearly up to his knees and striped in contrasting lines of blue. He slips his feet beneath the blankets as Peter watches with misgiving, and Q meets his cat’s eyes for a moment, fingers hesitant against the bottom of Bond’s cardigan.

James just watches him, as intently as the cat clinging to his side does. Q can’t help but smile, ducking his head, embarrassed, as he pulls the overly large sweater from his body and lets it land on the floor.

Carefully, Bond extricates the cat from himself, ignoring the indignant mewl that comes with the motion, and he shifts to rest on his elbow, raising the blanket from over Q where he seeks to hide beneath it. He wants to look. He has seen, now, of course, but never when Q wasn’t squirming or twisting or fucking him wonderfully into the bed.

He sets his hand to the button-down Q fumbles with and works the buttons for him.

“Yellow,” he comments, eyes narrowing in amusement.

Q blinks, taking a moment to process the remark before glancing downward. “Yes,” he answers. “It’s Tuesday.”

Another button comes loose and Bond raises a brow.

“It’s Tuesday, so I wear the yellow ones,” Q explains. “Unless there’s occasion to wear them on another day, in which case Tuesday becomes navy, normally reserved for Friday, and Friday gets the extra black pair instead.”

“Are you serious?” The remark is delivered with a smile, a genuinely surprised expression before it mellows to delight. There is no teasing, there, no cruelty. Q bites his lip and Bond slips the last button through its hole before spreading his hand against Q’s chest and pushing himself up to settle over the smaller man in a comfortable straddle. “And here I thought it was just your favourite color.”

“Must those things be mutually exclusive?”

“No.” Bond tilts his head and allows himself to look at the beautiful body spread before him. He keeps Q from curling in on himself like one of his cats by sitting on him, by spreading a warm palm against his stomach. “Stop squirming,” he laughs.

“Stop staring,” Q responds, huffing a breath when his thick-rimmed glasses are taken from him as well. “There’s nothing to see.”

“That’s why I took those from you.”

“Clever,” snorts the quartermaster. “You’ve got plenty I want to see, I’ve only begun to learn all the topography of your scars. Let me up so I can - Bond!” He laughs, embarrassed - truly - as his attempt to uproot himself is circumvented by his agent’s hands against his wrists, gently pinning him.

“You’ve had ample time to kiss them all,” Bond says. “Every inch. When is it my turn?”

“I’ve got no scars for you to kiss, so never.”

“The smooth and lovely expanse of your bare skin then, when do I get to explore that?”

Q swallows, glaring at Bond so close, eyes narrowed as much to squint at him as make his embarrassment known. He is blushing from the scrutiny, still more content to be nude in the dark together, or behind Bond where he doesn’t have to see him clearly. He is hardly worth the double take, let alone time to regard his average, skinny, pale body that is nothing to the man above him.

“Never.”

“Selfish.”

“Bond.”

James just leans down to press hot lips against Q’s throat, kissing hot there, a familiar place already explored to settle the younger man beneath him. He wonders if Q truly doesn’t know just how lovely he is, just how much James wants him for his mind as well as for his body. And he does. Truly, he does. Q is beautiful.

He arches anyway, despite the welcome kiss just _there_ in that spot that steals his breath and the little suck just _there_ that pulls from Q an altogether embarrassing sound. His fingers curl and Q knows that if he told James to stop, he would. If he were firm and if he meant it, James would let him go.

Part of Q wants to resist, truly, and disappear beneath the blankets again sight mostly unseen.

And part of him does not, when his agent’s appreciation for all that Q is lacking is laid so openly before him.

He’s always been this way, quick to dress after having one off in his room at university, quick to shut off the lights and slip beneath the sheets. He knows he isn’t loathsome, by societal standards, but all the same, he knows he hardly surpasses them. His body is pale, absolutely resistant to sun and angered to scarlet by its presence on him. He is bony, limbs too long and ribs too visible when he lays flat and lacking any sort of defined musculature that the man now kissing to his collarbone exhibits in spades. A ‘slip of a girly-boy’, Q was called once before that letter became his name and existence.

He’s never forgotten it.

“That’s enough, isn’t it?” Q asks, a plea lifting his voice before a shivering laugh splinters it again, when Bond seeks along his skinny arm.

“What is?” Bond murmurs, enough that his lips tickle vibrations over Q’s skin and makes him laugh again. He is lovely, he is someone James has wanted for a long, long time, and he would never have thought.

But here they are.

“I think,” he says, “that I will take the time to rightfully worship you today. Every inch.” Q tenses and blinks, eyes wide, meeting Bond’s when he tilts his head to look at him, gauging the level of true displeasure over unwarranted nerves. “It’s about bloody time you knew whom I lavish my affection on so dearly, and why I adore them so much.”

“Bond -”

“I happen to think this body is perfect, and I want to taste and touch and learn it by heart.”

Q swallows hard, throat jerking with the motion, lips parted both in nervous energy and a bid to beckon Bond back to them. “It doesn’t compare,” he says.

“To what?”

“To - to you,” the quartermaster exclaims. “Look at you, look at your trapezius muscles! Your biceps, deltoids, you’re - you’re physically perfect. That’s not just me saying it because we’re snogging, James, that’s science. Your records -”

“You read my records?”

“Of course I read your records!”

“Sneaky little bastard,” Bond laughs, bending to kiss him again, humming away more complaints and awkward shifts, attempts to have Bond persuaded that he doesn’t want this, that this is entirely unlikeable, unpleasant, unworthy -

“Darling, I have met men like me. I have punched most of them in the nose and sent them bloody packing. I would hate to bed a man like me, it’s terrible. I’m trying to make it up to you by showing you that this,” he kisses the center of Q’s chest. “This is perfect. And I want no other.”

This is enough for Q’s ceaseless, half-hearted struggle to finally still. The next kiss, warm lips moving on a steady trajectory towards his nipple, earns a soft sound from the young quartermaster. When he curls his fingers again, it’s not in protest, but to seek out a brush of fingertips against his agent’s wrists.

“Do you mean that?” Q asks, brow creased.

“That you’re more perfect than you know, and entirely beautiful?” Bond asks, lips closing against a pebbling nipple. Q moans, helpless to this in particular, hips lifting from the bed and settling only when Bond gives him reprieve.

“No,” he sighs. “No, that’s a load of bollocks. The other thing.”

Bond’s eyes lift, and Q’s cheeks flood hot, ruddy warmth. “That I want only you.”

“That,” he whispers.

Another hum in answer, another graceful duck of a messy blond head to torment Q’s chest some more. Bond laves the little bud with the flat of his tongue, flicks the tip against it, draws his lips together in a gentle suck. He wonders at the truth of his own words. He is not a liar to people he trusts, he can’t be. Some relationships have to be built on that mutuality and he would not break that on a whim or for any reason.

In truth, he has not felt this settled and grounded in a long time.

He is contented.

The thought of seeking out some exotic heiress pulls his brows into a furrow and his body to a cold laxity. No pleasure at the thought - no arousal. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care, because he doesn’t want anyone right then, but the man before him, whom he had rightfully wooed and properly won.

He pulls back to breathe cool air against Q’s goosepimpled skin and noses against him before lifting his head once more.

“No other,” he tells him, solemn. “A man worth so much effort to get is not a man I would toss to the wayside for anything.”

Q doesn’t argue that he, in fact, was not hard to get outside of his own perverse pleasure in denying Bond what he wanted. He doesn’t argue the fact that it took little more than rough rut against the wall of his office to make him melt. He doesn’t argue his own worth in this particular context, when James’ words are so sincerely spoken.

Instead he softens, everywhere but between his legs, and that only because it cannot be helped in this situation. He makes a little sound and Bond releases his wrists to slot their fingers together instead, palm to palm, squeezing to hold that unexpected promise between them.

“I need you to kiss me,” Q laughs, just a breath as he turns his head aside to cool his cheek against the pillow, and watches his agent from the corners of his eyes.

“I’m not done here,” answers Bond. His words are warm, amused still that Q only seems to measure his worth by the work that he does, and determined to show him differently.

“Fine, 007,” sighs Q. “Fine, you can keep going, just - kiss me first. Don’t deny me knowing how those words taste on your lips.”

James hums, and arches up to kiss him, a deliberate and slow thing, eyes closing and body pressing heavy down against the one that arches up to meet him.

“You bloody romantic,” he mumbles, delighting in kissing Q again, letting their fingers slip free when the quartermaster reaches up to gather blond hair between his fingers and grasp against it.

It’s true, Q supposes, that somewhere beneath the layers of security protocol he’s given himself, beats a gentler heart than he’d ever admit to having. Kept secret from those who might come near it, kept safe from those who might hurt it, it responds in a caged-bird flutter to James’ words and kiss alike. He parts their lips only so as to breathe and nod, once, before driving their mouths together again.

And then, as much to the quartermaster’s surprise as that of his agent, Q tugs his hair to move him downward again, grinning crooked and watching as Bond laughs against his chest.

“You’re not done here,” Q reminds him, brow arching imperious. “To be frank, 007, you’ve hardly even begun.”

“You are a right bossy bastard when you want to be, did you know that?” Bond mutters, grinning as he obediently parts his lips to continue his warm worship in kisses and sucks and licks against Q’s quick heartbeat and trembling body. He takes his time to taste and remember, to nuzzle against the places that tickle the most, to kiss those that yield easier. He torments Q’s nipple until there is a firm tug to his hair and again, he lifts his face to look at him with a smirk.

“Yes, quartermaster?” He asks, feigning exasperation.

The title tugs a shiver all along the younger man, enough to drive his hips up, bared body bending and cock stroking stiff against Bond’s belly. He licks his lips and laughs, a single lovely note, before clearing his throat to steady his voice to a familiar intonation and closing his eyes as he lays back again.

“Now pay attention, 007. You’re to engage in a mission of particular delicacy…”

“God, don’t do the voice.”

“Particular delicacy, with relation to a sensitive area. I’ll need you to listen closely, otherwise the assignment will be ended before it’s begun.”

“You want me to go down on you,” Bond confirms.

“Crude, 007, very crude,” Q scolds him, before he grins and opens his eyes just enough to regard him. “Yes.”

James shakes his head, smile widening before he tempers it, and clears his throat to return the indifferent drawl to his tongue, the one he happily transmits through the little receiver on his lapel when in the field.

“Must everything be so bloody delicate with you?” He asks, shifting to raise his hips, careful to move so as not to put pressure or tug at the ribs that ache beneath bruised skin. The way he settles has the blanket tenting atop them both, and as Bond sets his knees to the insides of Q’s, the younger man spreads his legs and draws his knees up. “This is hardly my first time.”

“The area in question requires careful handling, or -”

“Or?” Bond raises his eyes and sets his hands against the warm fabric of the yellow y-fronts. Q swallows.

“Just be careful.”

“You underestimate me.” A grin, bright, before James lifts Q’s hips and begins to slide the pants off of him, inch by inch, until his cock stands erect just above the elastic, until the cloth bunches at his thighs and elegant slim legs come together for the underwear to be pulled off entirely and discarded.

“The socks -”

“Were not part of the mission,” Bond replies, settling to his elbows and spreading Q’s thighs again, kissing hot against the sensitive skin on their insides.

“007 -”

Bond just hums, eyes up and mischievous, before he places his palms beneath Q’s ass, lifts him just a little higher and sets his lips hot not against the twitching cock, but against the sensitive trembling skin between his cheeks.

“Oh,” Q whimpers, squirming sinuous from shoulders to hips to toes. “Oh bloody hell, Bond, what do you think you’re -”

He isn’t afforded breath enough to finish his exclamation; what there is in his lungs leaves him in a long moan, lifting helpless and high. Bond’s tongue is pure heat against his opening, his lips warm and firm when they close in a sucking kiss. Q’s cock stiffens so hard, balls drawing up, that he’s winded from it.

Splaying his fingers against his belly, Q pushes past the dollop of clear slick from the tip of his cock and he tugs himself in a lazy pull. Each twist of wrist is timed to the slow licks laved against sensitive skin; each breath he tries to take breaks into a laugh when Bond sucks, the little noise of it obscene and delicious. Q pushes up to his toes to present himself, offering more, wanting more, wanting his agent to stay just where he is, for as long as they both can stand it.

This is an illicit pleasure that Bond allows himself to indulge in with anyone willing. Using his tongue, pressing hot filthy kisses against such a sensitive and taboo place makes his entire body shiver. The sounds his partners make, and this beautiful man in particular, the trembling and squirming, the way it brings even the most stoic lover to their knees.

He could do this for hours, splayed on his knees between Q’s spread legs.

He might, he thinks, amused. Just to see how long it would take his quartermaster to beg for mercy and curl to his side, spent, sated and devoured.

Bond moans, closes his eyes when the sound vibrates through to Q’s very bones and he whimpers. He can feel every pulse of movement carry through his quartermaster’s body, from the tightening of his stomach to the quivering of his thighs, to the clench and ease of the soft, wrinkled skin beneath his mouth. He nuzzles closer, lips circled to match the ring that he works open with his tongue, the velvet-delicate weight of Q’s balls resting just against his nose.

Q should feel ashamed of this, he knows. He knows he should pull Bond away from such decadent depravity and have very ordinary, very wonderful, still very queer missionary sex. He knows, and he doesn’t give a good goddamn about it. How can he when their pulses join together in rising heat and intensity? How can he when the sensation of Bond’s tongue inside him is enough to force Q to grip his cock not in pleasure but simply not to come spattering up to his throat?

He splays a hand across his face and begs mercy, laughing. He closes his thighs against Bond’s cheeks and his agent merely lift his bottom higher, fingernails curving sharp against tender skin, the torrid kiss he spreads slick against Q’s hole unrelenting and fierce. No one else, no other will have Q this way or any when Bond has promised the same. He wants nothing more than this ferocious adoration, than this stalwart loyalty; he wants no more than warm mornings on those rare few they can share together, and secret whispers - their own private code - through their communicators.

He wants Bond.

“James,” Q moans, his whole body throbbing and hot as tinder consumed in flame.

No other than his 007.

James just hums but he does pull back with a smile. He catches his breath, flashes a grin and draws his thumb over his bottom lip before sucking it clean.

“Getting very informal on the coms, quartermaster. Careful. People might talk.”

Q mutters a very informal curse indeed, well beyond his usual single-word utterances - a whole string of breathy mumbles caught against the back of his hand. He takes a deep breath to ease the dizziness that spins the bed beneath him and leans forward to grasp Bond by his hair. A quick jerk brings their bodies together again; a rough shove against the agent’s hard chest sets him to his back.

He draws a long leg up over Bond’s thighs and with inelegant neediness yanks free his belt and trouser button, the zipper, the pants themselves from Bond’s hips. Together with writhing need they strip them down at least to Bond’s knees before Q shoves his shirt up to his throat with fingers curled against his chest.

“You wanted to see me, 007?” Q asks, tossing his hair back from his face with a grin. He curls his hips and curves his spine, shoving their cocks together with a groan as his head bows. “Now you can look at me all you like.”

Bond groans, smile spreading deliberate and slow, eyes barely open and delighted to see Q so confident, trembling still from the thorough rimming. He is beautiful. He is bloody perfect, stubborn sullen arse that he is.

He sets his hands to Q’s lovely hips and holds on as the other rubs against him, deliberate pressure and friction.

“I will look my fill,” he says. “And complete my memorization tomorrow.”

“What is there left to know?” Q snorts, but his answer comes in the powerful hands that move his body for him, from narrow hips to narrower waist, up the swell of his ribs and beneath his arms to wrap around his shoulders. Bond curls his hands and pulls Q low, just rough enough to warp his words to a moan past parted lips and spill his hair into his face.

“Everything,” Bond promises. Warns. Guarantees, the cocky bastard. “All of you.”

Q tilts his head to draw their noses together, lips brushing but not yet closing to a kiss. Eyes hooded, he reaches back behind himself to line his agent’s cock up against his damp and ready entrance. The blunt pressure lilts his voice even past his bitten bottom lip, an aching need made clear in body, breath, and heartbeat.

“And only,” Q reminds him, fingernails curling against Bond’s hard chest as he begins to lower himself back in delicious inches.

A groan is his only answer, but it is one, with certainty. James’ head falls back and his eyes hood as Q sinks back with gentle turns and twitches, sweet sounds and extraordinary pressure. It is so bloody good.

Bond’s hands only guide, they never force or push or demand. They don't control the pace or depth, they caress and learn their fill. He considers, amused, how fieldwork will prove more challenging now that he no longer has the free use of his promiscuity and sexuality at his disposal. But Q will be on the other end of the microphone always, and it is as much reassuring as it is truly wonderful.

His stubborn and clever pointman. Beautiful and controlling quartermaster.

His hips twist lazy circles, spiraling upward and screwing back down again. His knees splay against the sheets and his back bends deep to flare his hips, moaning each time Bond is buried inside him again, moaning in each new movement Q finds in which to feel him. Muscles pull and stretch and ache in the same slow steady thrum with which his voice curls free, pulsing, dragged out high as Q sinks himself back deep enough that his cock leaks dripping from it.

Whether it's Bond's words or Bond's body that makes him so wanton, he can't determine. This is the man who makes breakfast when he stays over. This is the man who once bent Q over his own office desk and shagged him so good his thighs were bruised. The man who misses him when they're apart. The man who cannot stop himself from sending naughty photos from the field.

It is all of him, all at once, that moves Q so entirely in turn.

Q's breath hitches. Each impalement grows erratic, unsteady; his heart beats far too fast beneath Bond's hand when he rests it on his chest. Slender fingers curl around his wrist and there's a flash of pale green as Q lifts his eyes and lowers Bond's hand, over his belly and down between his legs.

Rough fingers curl and gently stroke, not enough to pull Q over, enough to tease him to more soft little sounds, to more pleas and laughter and shuddered breaths. He is close, a thin sheen of sweat covering him everywhere. His socks bunch around his ankles from how he moves and he could not care less.

James has never seen Q more beautiful than when he is so deliberately open.

“Q.” It’s soft, just barely strained in pleasure, and it’s enough. Without Bond knowing his actual name, without him, perhaps, ever knowing it. This is as close as they get and it feels like home. It feels warm and true and real.

Q's smile spreads and parts with a laugh, hardly a laugh - a breath exhaled trembling soft, shaken loose by the tremors that drive him towards release. Another bend of hips for Bond's cock to press just there inside him. Another thrust into his agent's hand. A gasp, as if startled, eyes wide and mouth slack as Q tenses and releases. Tenses and releases. Gasps and sighs and spurts and clenches, echoing up through the hollows of his skinny body and weighing him heavy against Bond's chest.

Their lips part hot together, closing fierce, spreading again. Between still coiling bodies, Q's come smears slick where he's ruched up Bond's shirt. He adores him, through annoyance and affection alike; there isn't anyone else who'd be allowed to see him so open. No one wants to. No one deserves to.

Only his agent, his partner, his force in the field to act out the commands that Q feeds to him with high expectation and constant worry. His other half, in every way, whose seeking hands are moved beneath Q's gentle grip, and guided to his backside where Bond's cock still pierces him stiff.

"See what you do to me?" Q tells him, grinning.

“I make a right bloody mess of you,” James purrs, tilting his head back so their lips brush again. It’s not quite a kiss, but a smile shared between them, hot breath and a low grunt of pleasure as Bond squeezes against the hot skin beneath his hands and kneads it gently.

“It’s unacceptable.”

“No,” he agrees, smiling a bit wider, rolling his hips in gentle undulations over and over until Q squirms against him, too sensitive and too tired, debauched and beautiful and young. “And you know what’s worse?”

“What, 007, could possibly be worse?”

“That I’ll bloody well do it again.”

"You will," murmurs the quartermaster, assuring Bond of this with a lingering kiss. Q squeezes his legs against Bond's hips and splays his knees wide again. His back curves down to his hips, rounding to feel Bond move inside him. He tilts their lips apart and smiles. "Later."

"Clarity," Bond points out. "It is now later than the last time it happened. Poor form, Q, you're slipping."

"007, no!"

Before any more protest can be voiced, he turns Q to the bed and pins him writhing, ducking his head to watch his length disappear inside the younger man. Quickening thrusts, plunging deep enough that Q's moans strangle breathless in his throat, cock rubbing against Q's sensitive prostate. He can do more than cling to Bond, arms around his neck, heels dug into the backs of his thighs.

"Mercy," Q laughs. "Mercy! James, please, the refractory period -"

"Bollocks to the refractory period," grunts Bond, grasping the headboard, bed rattling beneath them.

"That isn't how it wor- oh, oh _God_ ," moans Q as his cock leaks against his belly, hardly an orgasm, painful really, but a thick dollop left in the wake of the sensation vibrating through him.

Finally, James loses himself with a low-drawn groan, and slips his hands back to the bed, his body atop Q’s. He pulls free and shifts to allow himself to lay heavy over his quartermaster without putting too much weight on his side.

James is never clingy, he isn’t a fan of people who are, but with Q, he allows the deliberate touching, the curling of sleep-heavy limbs against his shoulders and down his back. He allows the kitten nuzzles and little sounds, the kisses that he returns, the affection that with anyone else would feel like oil against his skin and be entirely unwelcome.

To be frank about it, Bond is much the same before sex, determined and delighted in pleasing his partner with foreplay until both of them can barely keep their hands off each other.

Ying to the yang, or whatever. He runs a hand over his face and wonders when he allowed such stupid concepts to filter through his mind. They need to shower. They need to eat something more filling than a single sandwich and a mug of tea. They need to rest, properly, both of them, yet neither want to move. 

James jerks when a heavy warm something lands on his back and pads over it before curling up in a ball, and with a groan, he buries his face against Q’s neck, allowing thin fingers to card through his hair.

“Your bloody cats -”

“Have claimed you. I suppose you have to stay.”

“You suppose.”

“I insist.”

“Better.”

Q snorts, “Better.”

And in truth, it is. Better than expected, better than anticipated, better than anything either could have imagined. Though both are stubborn enough to never, ever admit it.

Stiff upper lip, and all that.


	7. Transposition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You know how I gather information, Q.”_
> 
> _"And you know we've talked about this."_

Q cannot hear the soft tap of keys from the rest of the Branch outside his door; their conversations at best are muffled, and even then he has to strain to hear them. He isn't alone, but he might as well be.

And just as well, really. Dressed down to soft plaid sleep pants and thick woolen socks, one of Bond's sweaters from home surrounds him like a blanket. He'd taken the opportunity to gather more comfortable clothes from home when he traveled briefly to feed Desmond and Peter, and then returned for what would most assuredly be a long night. It's all less professional than he prefers to be, and certainly if something goes awry, it means he'll have to take his meetings in slippers.

One does what they must.

Legs folded in his creaking leather desk chair, an ornate and old-fashioned thing with brass details and wooden rolling legs, Q leans forward to rest his arms folded on the desk. He sets his chin atop as if he might be a little closer to Bond by coming nearer to the laptop screen. It's still dark in Bucharest, and the streets are aglow with sulfurous golden light glinting from uneven cobbles.

He brings his coffee near and takes a sip.

"All well, 007?"

“Quiet,” comes the mumbled reply. Wherever James is reclining gives a good view of the street. James does this when there is a chance to show more than a shaking image of the back of the man he’s chasing, showing Q cities he would never otherwise see - scared of flying as he is. Long walks taken when he should be sleeping, jacket hung up to face the window after the predictable and always welcome striptease is complete for the evening.

He waits as a cat would for prey it knows is there, but the tone and the posture and everything about the entire scene feels almost serene. Quiet. There is no immediate need to stand and run, chase, hurt, hunt, whatever.

James had laughingly called this their fifteenth date, when he boarded the plane before the microphone had to be turned off for take-off.

“She’ll be here with her entourage soon,” he continues, tone drawling with a tilt of displeasure. “Then I will have to spend a lot of my energy on wooing. I would rather run a man down through the bloody catacombs, Q, Christ.”

Q's chair squeals when he adjusts, setting his heel to the seat and wrapping his arm around his leg. He smiles a little when the camera shifts as Bond takes a drink of his martini, and for a moment catches his reflection in the glass. It takes only a breath more for his smile to strain, and too difficult to maintain, Q lets it slip.

"Catacombs are extremely dangerous, but for few exceptions," Q notes, voice a little too high. "All the dangers of darkness combined with old architecture, often built in such a way as deter invaders from entering the city from below. Wooing, you say?"

Bond's hand stills in returning to his glass to the table, before he sets it carefully back down. "Don't tell me your beloved equipment's on the fritz."

"It isn't. Ever. James -" A hum interrupts him and Q huffs a soft breath in deference. "007, could you please outline your plans for me this evening?"

“You know the assignment back to front, Q.” Bond’s tone softens with a sigh but remains as professional as ever. Just as when he slips unconscionable innuendos into all his replies, just as when he mentions the possibility of something domestic, or playful, or comfortable, masked enough that no one in the division would think twice. “She is here, and her husband is not. While he is not, and while she remains petulantly angry at him for leaving her behind yet again to go on yet another unsolicited business trip that we all know is anything but official, I need to get information.”

There is quiet from Q, and Bond rolls his eyes to the dark sky above. Few stars, too early in the evening for them, but enough that they can be seen through the tiny camera he wears. He adjusts his position, crosses his legs.

“You know how I gather information, Q.”

"And you know we've talked about this."

They have, in fact, at length, to great aggravation and little resolution. Q's imperiousness extends beyond high expectations in the workplace and in bed; his insecurity is a whispering, writhing thing within, never sated and at any moment capable of coiling in him so tight his body feels bruised from it. It demands to be mollified as much as the quartermaster who acts as host to it. Logically, Q knows that Bond cares for him. He knows just as much that their work will forever come foremost and that Bond's abilities in the field cannot be compromised. Yet even settled by kisses after one of these terse conversations, Q's stomach aches for hours after.

"There must be other methods of decryption, 007."

"People aren't computers. We're creatures that respond to food, comfort, safety -"

"Sex."

"Yes."

Q jams his finger in his rush to mute their connection from being recorded.

"To pull data from a system requires finesse. It's a poor hack that relies on brute force entry alone -"

"You know I'm anything but a brute about it."

"This isn't funny," Q hisses. His words linger in the hum of electricity between them, but he can hear his throat click in his ears when he swallows again. This is why he should have handed the overnight monitoring off to someone else. This is why M warned him about complicating the relationship. Finally, softly, he asks, "What am I to do, 007?"

“You know, Q, your part in this particular endeavor is easier than mine.”

“Easier?”

“Yes,” comes the terse reply, the camera shifts to show the table, just the drink and an elegantly folded napkin on the dark wood marked by years and years of dragged glasses and tapped fingers. “You have to observe, I have to participate.”

The silence grows heavy, sickening and stifling, before the agent lets out a long breath and downs the rest of his drink.

“It hardly helps if I tell you it’s thoughtless and necessary.”

“You’re right.”

“What am _I_ to do, then, Q?” Bond asks, pushing himself to stand as a group of elegantly dressed women make their way past the street on their way to the main road to hail a taxi. Bond doesn’t approach them, he passes them, some eyes turning his way, some lips finding themselves between teeth. Q could scream for it. “How else am I to get into that house without immediately facing down a wall of bullets?”

Q curls his fingers in his hair, until the tug reaches a certain tension that reminds him too much of how Bond bends him to bring their mouths together. He lets go and spans his fingers, weightless, over the top of his keyboard as though it might divine an answer to him. “I can try to crack their security from here.”

“You have already. Isolated network, self-contained. Their own little datacenter tucked away in the cellar, remember?”

Q shakes his head, not because he doesn’t remember, but because he doesn’t want to. He’d spent bloody weeks on it, unable to penetrate or find a single outside connection. Bastards. And they, too, bastards regardless of their gender, the women who laugh when Bond spares them a glance across his shoulder. Q slips his fingers over his mouth to keep himself from making a sound that would distract his agent now.

This isn’t life or death. It truly isn’t. Facing down a hail of bullets would be. Attempting to break in would be. This is simple, animal - as the man himself had said. So Q gives up on playing prophecy with his keyboard and instead wraps his arms around his leg, resting his cheek on his knee.

“I know you can’t talk when they’re looking,” Q finally says. “But I know you can hear me, so I’ll tell you this now when you can’t call me daft or stubborn or any of the names you like to call me when I’m being precisely those things. I’m sorry. Not for being a shit, that’s beyond help, but I’m sorry you’ve got to do something you don’t want to do. And I’m glad that you don’t want to do it. Would it help if I handed this off to someone else? I can tell you to enjoy yourself, if you need.”

Before him, on the monitor, Bond pulls out his phone and keeps the screen within view of the camera as he types.

_You’re a stubborn, daft shit, Q._

It’s enough to pull a smile from the quartermaster, though it hardly reaches his eyes. The phone disappears and Bond shifts to press his back to the brick wall of one of the large old buildings, angled to watch the women make their way away from him, settled enough that Q can tell he is resting his weight on one leg more than the other.

“And what am I supposed to tell her when I can’t get it up?” Bond murmurs through the microphone, phone an easy cover for a conversation he should not be having, and quiet enough that his mark would not hear him nor heed it as odd. “When instead of her terribly bleached blonde hair I would rather have chocolate curls between my fingers? No, you are on this assignment as much as I am and your arse is as much on the line as mine regarding this particular endeavor, Q - don’t you bloody dare hand me off to some minion of yours in Q Division.”

Q’s eyes do finally lift at this chastisement, lip held between his teeth as he grins, and released with a put-upon - no, an outright _laborious_ sigh. “I’m sure it would be educational for them to see you in action. So to speak.”

Bond’s snort carries through the device and Q allows a laugh, as much so his agent can hear it as to relieve any of the tightness still gnarled in his lungs. He lowers his knee and tucks his feet beneath himself again, cross-legged, taking up his coffee to cradle it in his lap.

“You look wonderful tonight,” Q tells him. “Overdone, of course, your suit costs more than most of those in Bucharest combined. But you can’t be helped in that way, and it cuts a striking figure right down your -”

Silence hums between them.

“My,” Bond begins, as he leans forward off the wall to meet the pretty young heiress who approaches him. “My, my.”

“Your waist,” Q says, whispering. “It accents the shape of you, a masculine form that the ancient Greeks in all their idolatry would have worshipped. And all I can think when I see you like this is how your hips feel when they press sharp against my thighs.”

Q can only see the way the camera moves, and slips his eyes away to the corner of the screen when it settles to give a bright and clear view of the young lady’s cleavage in her near-slip of a dress. He hardly listens to Bond’s purring tone, he tries not to, the words falling from his lips in a practiced drum of warm rain against the skin before him. There is a tug, truly, of jealousy when there is a response to that tone, but of course there would be. No one is immune to that tone. No man or woman alive can resist it.

“That’s hardly proper,” Bond laughs, following the young woman down the alley towards a waiting cab. Q can hear the familiar smile in his words, the tilt of his voice just a margin lower where it transcends from teasing to downright filthiness. The heiress laughs, titters something in her accented English and grasps Bond’s tie to pull him into the car. Q catches the brief reflection in the driver’s side mirror as he settles, hands at his throat to adjust the tie and collar, to run, tickling and caressing, against the skin there that Q so often nuzzles in his sleep and kisses in the morning.

It is as much a show of submission as it is a reminder.

Q sucks the coffee from his lip longer than it takes to clear the milky sweetness away.

“You’re right,” he allows. “Much as I love wincing into my trousers the next morning - running my fingers across the pale shadows you leave on my legs, it’s hardly proper at all to discuss such things,” he says, “when you could be the one unable to sit instead.”

“How’s that, love?” Bond asks, tilting his head to the woman who purrs against his ear that her husband is a cruel man, and doesn’t she deserve to enjoy herself once in a while? “You’re entirely right,” agrees the agent. “More than right. I think you’re onto something,” he says, “or soon to be, anyway.”

“Patience, 007. I know you bend so needy for me, presenting yourself wanton and moaning. Now pay attention, and tell me what you’re going to do to me first,” Q says against the lip of his mug.

A hum, low and deep and deliberate, and Q ignores the shuffle of fabric that suggests wrong hands seeking beneath his agent’s shirt to touch him. He ignores the shift of breath close to the microphone as lips meet and part again. He looks, instead, when the camera points down once more, pushed deliberately askew by tugging fingers and careful turns, at how far spread Bond’s legs are where he sits.

“Tempting,” he purrs as the heiress laughs and tugs James’ tie looser. His hands are busy but his mind is perfectly centered, concentrating on the tiny voice in his ear that currently does little more than breathe and sip coffee against the microphone. “It would hardly do to reveal such things where others might hear.”

“I’m already being so naughty,” the heiress laughs, her voice hissing through the microphone as she breathes against Bond’s ear. “I don’t care if the driver hears.”

“I hope our safety isn’t endangered,” James replies, allowing that deep vibration of a purr to coil through the vowels. “With him imagining me spreading your thighs to taste between.”

Q’s knuckles whiten against the mug and his toes curl tight enough that his foot cramps. It would draw far too much attention to shatter his mug against the wall, and violent response to frustration has never really been his style anyway. He sets it to the table and pushes it back just to the tips of his fingers, out of convenient reach.

“Home,” the heiress snaps, as the car starts and she spreads herself back across the seat to regard James at distance. Her shoes thump to the floor and her knee falls wide.

“I want you to think about it,” Bond says, to a laugh from the heiress and a hum from his quartermaster.

“Your tongue, spread warm,” Q says, eyes closing, fingers laced tightly together. “Slow and easy at first, because you know that if you move too quickly -”

“You’re going to finish before we’ve even started,” quips Bond.

“Yes,” laughs Q, a weak and uncertain sound. “Yes, so you toy with me, the tip of your tongue pressing just inside, lips wrapped in a wet kiss. A finger joins your mouth in the endeavor, spreading me open so patiently that I’m shaking from it. Because I want this from you. Because you enjoy it, too. And when I tug your hair and tell you more -”

“Wait,” Bond laughs, and the irritating giggle takes up the microphone for a moment. Q clenches his jaw, squeezes his fingers together and thinks, instead, of how that low laugh tastes against his lips when he presses them to James’ Adam’s apple. He thinks of harsh hands that soften quickly, he thinks of yielding flesh, strength usually used to push and control entirely set aside and surrendered.

“Cruel. Did I tell you you could be cruel?”

“No,” comes the breathless reply, and there is the sound of car tires over heavy gravel, the sound of a door opening and shuffled footsteps and shivering fabric as the agent makes his way out of the car and into the house, following the barefoot and stupid woman who leads him exactly where he needs to go.

Q stays on the line. He keeps his screen open. Though every part of him tenses with want to kick out his chair and walk away, he remains all but frozen as the telltale click of kisses and chorus of moans fills his head.

And he speaks. Even when Bond can’t reasonably do so, even when the camera falls to the floor revealing nothing more than a twitching bedskirt, Q tells him what he wants done to him. What he would do. What they will do when he returns home safe and how they’ll kiss away these wounds they’re forced to cause each other to save their world from threat and how warm the bed will feel again with James in it. Not 007. Not now. It doesn’t matter. James, his own, who puts his body on the line in every way for this. James, who will have been missed by his quartermaster and his quartermaster’s cats alike.

He tells him that he’s bought a new coffee that he’ll make for him when he returns.

He tells him that he touched himself last night and brought himself to climax with little more than memories and the scent of Bond’s sweater pressed against his nose.

And when the night is done, Q ignores his half-hardness until it fades, few words spoken between them when Bond awakens early to continue his assignment within the house. What is there to say, really, when Q has talked himself hoarse the entire night before? What is there to do when the sleeves of his agent’s sweater are still damp with the wet heat that spilled from Q’s eyes as his lover - his love - slept pressed against another, surrounded by danger, half a world away?

They say little. The work is passed off dutifully to the next officer of Q Branch who takes over for the quartermaster.

Q lays in bed, unable to sleep, and worries for the day that follows.

There is no news of a broken case the next day, or the next. Bond strays on in Bucharest to keep up appearances, and then, as any rich entitled man, he vanishes from the backdrop of old buildings and cobblestone roads. The information is processed and sent through for analysis, codes and adjustments, security backups and everything else gets sifted through by the various departments at MI6.

Bond is welcomed home with a crisp “good” from M, who doesn’t even look up from her paperwork when he sets his reports to her desk. She tells him, with the door closed between the two of them and the offices beyond, to “get a bloody move on” if he wanted to beat traffic out of the city.

So he does.

He takes his own car.

He beats traffic.

He doesn’t attempt to scale the wall like an idiot to get to the open bedroom window, nor does he barge right on in, keys in hand, and set off the blasted alarm. He knocks, instead, like a gentleman, and waits for the quiet footsteps from within, for the clicks of the endless locks and the soft beep of the alarm system, and when Q stands before him, hair mussed and expression drawn in exhaustion and displeasure, he sets his hands on either side of Q’s face and kisses him.

Q’s sound of protest falters, as does his clumsy backwards step beneath the weight - the _need_ \- of Bond’s mouth against his own. Bond kicks the door shut behind him as Q wraps his hands around his agent’s wrist, not pulling them apart, never that, but simply steadying himself from dizziness. The ground itself is uneven beneath him; he is weak.

And so rather than try to stand on his own, he lets go of Bond’s arms and wraps his own around his agent’s neck, pulling himself up to his toes as they kiss.

It is a hot kiss. Heavy. Dense and humid as high summer and just as welcome in its warmth. Q spreads his lips and Bond’s follow his lead, clearing the way for them to taste the other as their breath rattles cool, brisk breezes against the other’s cheek. He spreads his hand through Bond’s hair, blonde strands gathered between his fingers. He pulls to separate their kiss, just enough to take a breath, before diving in again.

Bond bends to slip his hands beneath Q’s thighs and hoists him up, turning to the nearest wall to press the young quartermaster there as he allows them both breath, turning his attentions and affections against the silken skin at Q’s neck, the gently stubbled cheeks, the ticklish warmth behind his ears.

He says nothing. He doesn’t need to, neither of them do.

Words would be empty when all he wants to do is fill his lungs with the smell of this man again, when he wants to press his lips to his, when he wants to hold him close and think of no other weight and no other person against him again. It was the first time, on assignment, that he had felt ill going into a mission requiring such intimacy - put on or otherwise - with a mark. It was the first time he had found his stomach turning, ill, the next morning when he had to play nice.

That morning, the coffee he drank tasted especially bitter, when all he could hear were Q’s broken-voiced promises to make him a cuppa when he came home again.

There is no where else that he would rather be.

Q hooks his heels together and wraps his arms tighter. Clutching his agent against him, furious kisses give way to brushes of lips and warm nuzzles, nose beside nose. Q lifts his chin and turns a sigh against Bond’s temple, ruffling his hair when he breathes it in, shivering when Bond presses a kiss just beneath his ear.

They haven’t long together. They never do. In perpetuity, it seems, their attempt to share a life together will be punctuated by work that sinks as deep as bullets into their bodies. In a few days, a week, several weeks if they’re fortunate, Bond will be deployed again, and Q will follow him if only in voice across those vast distances. He will be there to scold him into tying a tourniquet around a wound. He will be there to whisper him to sleep.

They will go together, but here and now, these are the moments for which they’ll fight the world to keep whole.

“Lay with me?” Q asks, drawing a kiss against Bond’s stubbled cheek. “Let me just - I need to -”

“Shut up,” James tells him fondly, smiling against his skin when Q hums his displeasure against warm hands and soft lips. “I’ve spent all bloody week listening to you, let me finally look at you.”

He doesn’t carry them upstairs, too far to the damned bed and unnecessary expenditure of energy when he can just as easily settle them both into the over-stuffed sofa in the sitting room. Bond sits first, pulling Q atop and laying back with a groan. Legs are drawn up, Q is gently turned to lay on his side with his back to the back of the sofa as James settles with his nose against his throat and lets his eyes close properly, without wariness or worry, for the first time in days.

What Q tried, faltering, to convey to him with words, he now speaks with his body instead. Gentle fingers thread through greying golden hair, hand spreading down the back of Bond’s neck and across his shoulders in languid, soothing circles. They shift to twine their legs together, and the arms on which they lie are brought between them, fingers lacing firm. He presses kisses to Bond’s brow, over each and every furrow until they smooth. He rests his chin atop his head as his heart’s frantic fluttering begins to slow to resting.

He’s not slept properly in days. He knows his agent hasn’t either. Both for worry that Bond would encounter difficulty - _complications_ \- that would render his absence longer or perhaps even permanent. It seems silly now, the aching anger that welled in Q when Bond was made to do his job. A soft sound betrays his displeasure with himself, and James nuzzles closer against him.

“I’m sorry,” Q whispers, “that I upset you. I’m sorry I was upset. I’m sorry for being a stubborn, daft shit of a quartermaster who loves his agent too much for anyone’s good.”

For a moment there is no reply, just slow breath, and Q wonders if perhaps Bond hasn’t just fallen asleep, exhausted from the trip and the pressure and the almost impossible conditions that Q inflicted upon him, even when he told himself he wouldn’t.

“I had started composing a report in my head,” he mumbles at last. “To M. Explaining why it was that after all this time I could no longer simply shove my cock into whoever was nearest or most efficient to screw for a job.” He draws a breath and stretches, just a slight shift of shoulders and coiling muscles. “‘You will excuse my being forward, ma’am,’” James recites, soft puffs of air against Q’s skin as he speaks. “‘But beneath my bravado and genuinely exceptional technique, I fear it would be beyond rude to not only put my partner in a position where he must listen to me performing a carnal act with another, but have him dictate me through it, as I no longer seem to respond to anything but his voice.’”

Q laughs, as much as he can, which isn’t much at all. Just a little noise caught upon his breath, brittle as an autumn leaf in wind. He wraps his arm around Bond tighter, squeezes his thigh to pull them close, until there’s hardly room enough for light to pass between their bodies, held so desperately together.

“She’d laugh you out of her office,” Q murmurs against James’ hair, his smile appearing only when he feels his agent do the same. “‘You knew what you signed on for, 007, and it wasn’t to shag the quartermaster’,” he mimics, and this time earns a laugh, too. With a sigh, Q shifts back to put space between them, only enough that he can cup Bond’s cheek in his palm and lift his chin. “So long as you have to go out there, I’m going with you.”

“You’re a right sap,” Bond replies, stretching again and settling in close once more, nuzzling into the palm that touches him even as his eyes remain barely open. He trembles intermittently from lack of sleep, but he wants nothing more than to spend time just being held, and holding back. “You know I would choose you over Queen and bloody country.”

“She’ll love that.”

“Who?” James quips. “The Queen or the country?”

“M, who’d have both our heads for treason if she heard it,” grins Q, snorting a laugh. Then another. It builds like a springtime shower, soft spatters that become torrential before one can find cover from it. He laughs with wild, youthful abandon against Bond’s brow, his cheek, tucking his joy against his mouth and then quieting only when they lean into the other’s kiss.

Breaches into the world’s most secure locations and forays into violent territories. Malfunctioning machinery and electromagnetic glitches that render communications silent. So much have they survived that it would cause a nervous collapse were Q to allow himself to recall it all. So much will they have to survive before quiet mornings sharing the paper and breakfast become routine, rather than rarity.

“If you do,” Q says, eyes closing with a smile when Bond lifts a brow. “When you do, I’ll go with you then too. I may be a sap but I’m bloody loyal to a fault, Bond. Harder to win over than the cats, I assure you.”

“It’s true,” James sighs. “I didn’t have to bring the cats Israeli malachite to woo them.”

“Just your suits.”

“At least they like the damn suits,” Bond says, pressing close and sighing long before pulling back and seeking the floor with his foot. “Bed,” he says. “Reports have been written and returned and I will not see the inside of that bloody building for as long as I bloody can. Come on.”

“Brute,” Q scolds him, voice rising to a fussy sound as he’s pulled towards the edge of the couch by his wrists.

“I’ll drag you all the way there if I have to.”

“Cruel.”

“You’re full of it, you know that,” Bond says, and Q hides his grin against the warmth of the couch where Bond lay moments before, sliding precariously closer to the edge. Q murmurs something under his breath, and Bond stops tugging for a moment. “What was that? Speak clearly, Q, there’s distortion on the line.”

“I said,” his quartermaster answers, nose wrinkled and cheeks warm as he peeks towards Bond, “that I’d better be full of you before the night’s out.”

“You won’t be,” Bond assures him. He releases Q’s wrists but only long enough to duck and catch him around the waist. Q curses a laugh as he’s slung over Bond’s shoulder and held in place by the backs of his knees, feet lifting as his long legs bend towards the ceiling. He rubs his cheek against Bond’s back as he’s carried towards and up the stairs.

“And why’s that, 007?”

“I was promised you’d make it hard for me to sit, and considering I intend to spend all day tomorrow lying in bed with you, I’d say you’ve quite the challenge ahead.”


	8. Buffer Overflow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Bond?”_
> 
> _Nothing._

"Now pay attention, 007."

"How can I not when you use that voice?"

Q glances to one side and then the other, but his cohorts of Q Branch remain dutifully attentive to their work, eyes down to their screens. Only then does the quartermaster allow a fleeting smile, forced away when he clears his throat. The code on his screen before him is a blur of shifting commands, wavering in a steady stream of data that makes his head hurt when he tries to read it too closely.

He looks back to Bond instead, or through him at any rate. In the gaze of the thermal-infrared camera he wears, the world in transposed greys and blacks and too-bright white. Curving favela roads twist away like rivers of dust between corrugated steel and clapboard walls. The buildings themselves that line the street loom tilting above it, as if stretching toward the other side to bridge the scant space between.

Q forces a deep breath and spreads his hands across the desk, leaning forward.

"There are heat signatures everywhere," Q tells his agent. "Too many to make sense of. Overpopulation of the region dating back to the 19th century has created-"

"Q," interrupts Bond. "We're not here for a history lesson."

"Right. What I'm saying is that I can't tell you if something's amiss. There are people in the buildings to either side of you. Just keep moving forward and don't stop."

“Brilliant,” comes the dry reply. “So we’re no closer than we were before.”

“You are, in fact, seventeen steps closer -”

“Being pedantic is as much a hobby of yours as voyeurism isn’t it?” Bond asks, and Q bites the inside of his lip to keep from smiling. He hopes the warmth that tickles his cheeks is associated with displeasure rather than genuinely pleased delight. There is a quiet beep from the gun Q made for his agent, one that responds to his palm print only, and that, at least, relaxes his shoulders for the moment.

If anything, Bond knows how to aim.

“Bloody labyrinth,” Bond says. The road before him wavers grey, an undulation of distortion tearing the image. Q tunes out the quiet grumbling in his ear and tries to read his screen again, but the letters blur until he's forced to look away.

"007," Q tells him, as another ripple of static spills pixellation across the screen. "We're experiencing interference with the infrared. Can you change to your other camera?"

"What other camera?"

"The other -" Q stops, tongue past his lips to part them sighing, brow creased. "The one that's sitting on the workshop bench here, because we only needed the IR."

"So no, then, I'd say I'm unable to use it."

The feed flickers, as if a storm arose suddenly and swiftly, throwing static in its gusts rather than leaves. The digital detritus fills the screen in a whorl of black and grey and white, until Q finally taps the key to switch it off. Too distracting to have so much movement and so little information; too much alarm snaring his stomach firm. It could be as simple as a low-slung power line or a radio tower too near.

It could be.

It could just as well be a deliberate jam.

"We've disconnected video for now, but I can still hear you clear enough," Q tells his agent, forcing his voice steady. "I need you to -"

"Pay close attention?"

"Stay alert," Q tells him, shaking his head. "Something's not right."

“Bloody right,” Bond sighs.

With no visuals, Q keeps his eyes on his fingers, gently stroking the keys but not yet typing. He tries to concentrate on the slow inhales and exhales of the agent on the other end of the line, the steady steps which take him through the maze-like passages of the shipping yard. He wants to tell him something, to joke, to make him smile. He wants to suggest take out for dinner when he gets home, so neither of them have to bother to cook that day. He wants -

“Bollocks.”

The gunfire is restrained to sharp zips of air as they leave the silencers mounted on their barrels. Bond’s own gun goes off infrequently, enough to take down one, then another, then another - no useless throwing away of bullets he doesn’t have an infinite supply of. Q steeples his fingers against his nose and breathes slow into his hands; he closes his eyes as it might be by his choice that he cannot see what’s occurring.

“Bond?”

Nothing, another zip of a bullet, a soft groan and return fire.

“007.”

Q holds his breath. He listens. There is nothing now but the warm Brazilian wind. And breath, just breath, surely that's what that sound really is. The same breath that spills slow against the back of his neck every morning. The same breath sighed laughing into his hair. The same breath that fuels the heart of the stubborn, egotistical, inconsiderate and infuriating man who Q loves so badly that he prays.

He prays.

That Bond is hiding, ducked secret and silent and waiting for a moment to check in. That Bond cannot answer, will not, for now, but crouches waiting. That the groan that Q heard in answer to his voice was not his agent.

The Division is motionless around him, stiff and silent as the crypt.

"007," Q says, clearing his voice. "I need a signal. Now."

_Demanding prat._

"Now, please, we need contact. Touch your earpiece and it will signal by fingerprint."

_Bossy little shit._

"007, we've lost contact with - with your sidearm, there's no biometric response, there's - there -" Q says, words sticking thick in his throat through which he cannot speak, cannot breathe, but can only make a small and faltering sound. "No."

The rest of the Division is quiet, watching Q as Q watches the dark screen and listens to the wind blowing by the earpiece. He touches his own, as though that will help, as though pressing it he can awaken Bond to reply.

“James,” he breathes.

“Sir -”

“Shut up! James!”

_God, you’re persistent aren’t you?_

“ _James_.” It’s a sob, no longer the restrained and contained professionalism, no longer the scoffing and resigned sigh into the earpiece. It’s raw. It hurts his throat and his chest and Q can’t breathe. He doesn’t care that the Division can hear him, he doesn’t care that someone might see that tears smear and gather against his glasses, caught on the lip of the frames, not yet dripping down. He doesn’t care.

Aching across his skin like bruises are the unfulfilled memories of every morning they'll never share together. His lips tingle numb from short-shorn breath that begs wordless for the kisses that he will never know. The cordage of his heart binds that weak organ like a noose and Q wants it to stop, now, here. Now. Now, he wills his foolish heart, now just stop and fall flat like the singular line that blurs to nothing before his watery gaze.

Q jerks violently away from the hands that find his shoulders, blinking away tears and gasping like a drowning man just surfaced. He swings behind himself at whomever's touched him and his wrist is caught firm as an animal sound rips raw from inside him to sunder deathly silence.

“Hey.” The voice is sleep-rough, familiar. “Hey, beat on me all you want, darling, but if you don’t breathe you won’t get farther than the edge of the bed.”

A warm hand presses to Q’s cheek, feeling the tears there, smearing them with a rough thumb as Bond leans nearer, squints at him through the dark of the room.

“Q,” he murmurs. “Hey, look at me.”

Q's eyes are wide and sightless. He stares at Bond uncomprehending, the narrow focus of his attention replaced with blown pupils and flashing whites. What starts as a tremor grows into a quake, vibrating from the far reaches of his fingertips through his arms, to his core, and finally pushing another, smaller sound from him, hoarse with tension. He clasps Bond's hand and presses it harder to his cheek, rubbing against his agent's warm palm, unable to understand why it's wet until he realizes he's weeping.

With childish, gasping sobs, Q tries to take a breath but he can't. He pants, too short, too quick. Clumsy numb fingers grasp the back of Bond's neck to pull them close, and Q finds air again in the hollow of his agent's throat. He sucks down a hard pull of air and traps it inside, teeth pressed so hard against his bottom lip that it whitens.

Embarrassment is the sudden cold spray of a shower when the boiler's gone. He shivers and exhales all at once, trembling even as James pulls him carefully closer.

"I'm sorry," Q whispers. "Forgive me, I'm sorry, it's unprofessional and - "

“Screw professional,” James whispers, shifting to lie on his back and pull Q atop. He rubs his hands up and down the warm soft fabric of his too-large worn tee-shirt until the trembling begins to ease. He is not new to nightmares, to the cold grasp of them against his heart and lungs. He is not new to seeing his friends die over and over again. He is not new to reliving his time in the orphanage. He is not new to feeling old wounds flair up as though they were just recently made.

He feels remiss for not having thought of how Q would similarly suffer at night. Seeing and never acting, being the voice at the other end of the line and never the hand with the gun. Helpless, in that way, always bloody helpless.

“I’m here,” he tells Q softly, as his quaking picks up to a worrying vibration again before it eases once more. “I’m here, you’re safe with me.”

"I heard you," Q whispers, when he can do no more than that, no more than shiver beneath every instance of Bond's touch against him. "No," he says, "I didn't hear you. I didn't hear anything, like - like a cut connection. It was. Sudden, so sudden, James, you were there and then you weren't - you wouldn’t be -"

"I'm here," James says again.

Q's only response is a low noise, desperate, before he lifts his head to look, nevermind the wet and ruddy cheeks he has to bare to do so. Tears slip from beneath his lashes when he blinks, pale-eyed gaze searching across James' features. He lifts a hand and follows the hard line of the older man's jaw. His fingertips mark the curve of his mouth.

"It usually happens when you're away," Q says. "It always happens when you're away. When all I have is your voice and I know that it's all I might ever have again."

James runs his fingers through Q’s hair, untangling the curls from how they’ve pressed together in sleep. It’s been three days, three blissful days since he had come home to London, come home to Q, spending enough time in his own apartment to gather clothes and necessities, check that his fridge wasn’t growing new life forms in his absence, and lock up again.

Bollocks to the city. He rarely stays there anymore.

“You never call,” Bond murmurs, but it’s hardly an accusation, hardly displeasure. Concern, certainly. “You should, next time.”

Q laughs, humorless. “And say what?”

“Anything you wish,” James tells him. Q makes another sound and Bond shifts so that Q can bury himself against his chest. Head beneath his chin, hands curled between them so he feels small, he picks absently at the frayed sleeves of his shirt as James continues to rub his palms up and down his back.

“I wake, sometimes,” he says after a while, feeling Q respond to his words with a shift and sigh. “Worrying that I am in Siberia. Or Colombo, or some dank prison in Shanghai. I wake wondering how long I’ve been there, how long it’s been since you’ve told me to ‘keep at it, 007’, or ‘concentrate’. How long it will be until you curl on me, like this. I wake and before I realize I am at a hotel, or in my apartment, or here, with you, I wonder how long I will keep holding on. How long I can.”

It's hardly the first time they’ve spoken of this. Sometimes spurred by a long day of frustrating work and tedious meetings. Sometimes inspired by sleepless nights spent in the workshop and in briefing, respectively. And they speak of it every time, every time, when Bond has returned from the field battered and bruised and they cleave to the other as if another parting were imminent.

It is imminent. Always impending. Always a matter of time until the world needs saving again.

"It can't go on forever," Q says, fingers stretching to spread their tips against James' chest. He breathes a sound that could be a laugh, were there any pleasure in it. "I don't know whether I want to be loyal, and tell you to carry on, old chap, until statistical likelihood of survival catches up with you and I spend the rest of my days in grief for what I've done -"

"Or?"

"Or to be selfish. For us to both walk away. I could seek out other means to pay the mortgage. Go back to monitoring some tired office's uninteresting network. I would hate it," he admits, wry, "but it would take the sting out to come home to you at night, and know you'd be there."

If they'd even be allowed. If they wouldn't be far-flung to disparate places for their own security and that of the SIS. If they'd not be forbidden from the other upon threat of prosecution for espionage. Q's breath hitches short again, held long as he blinks free tears again, suddenly and silent.

Bond draws his knees up around Q to hold him close, and then he turns to his side, one arm supporting the smaller man against him. His other drags the blanket up to their shoulders, and after a pause over their heads as well, cocooning them in warmth and darkness together. With a grunt, James settles to bed and pulls Q nearer.

Agents do not have a long shelf life. 00's in particular, with their missions and requirements, don’t last more than half a decade, a full one if they flirt with lady luck enough. It is not a job to sustain as a career, it is not a job that has a lifetime guarantee. It has no guarantee, especially of a lifetime. Once retired, agents have an enviable pension and a promise never to be bothered again. What they don’t tell you at the ceremony is that they also have a lifetime of nightmares and aching scars, countries they can never visit again, people they can never see.

It is not a jetsetter lifestyle. It is not a life for someone with a family or relationship to care for and nurture.

"They won't let us go," Q finally says, the agent's silent rumination as clear to him as if they were his own thoughts. They have, as two people in their roles often do, formed a sort of strange symbiosis. Q prides himself on having a solution for Bond's problems in the field before they're even voiced to him. Bond brings dinner to Q without needing confirmation that his quartermaster has been too busy to remember to eat again. They finish each other's sentences.

"Don't say it," Bond tells him.

"I don't want to consider it any more than you."

"So don't. It isn't an option."

"Isn't it?" Q considers, dismal, his words so soft they're all but whispered. "Separation on our own terms rather than theirs. Rather than pulling ourselves through emotional minefields, our communication wrapped around us like barbed wire. Maybe in time it would hurt less, these - these inevitables - if we tried to distance now."

“Of course,” Bond replies, dire, angry, though his displeasure is hardly aimed at Q. “Because I won’t still count my breaths against yours on the coms. Because you won’t worry, when cameras cut, that something will go wrong. Because coming home to you, knowing you’re here, and alive and safe, because of something I did, is doing me more harm than coming home to a cold and empty flat.”

It’s upsetting. All of it it. James shifts closer and wraps a leg heavy over Q.

“Bollocks to logic, Q, bollocks to bloody propriety.”

As ever, as in everything, they share their distress, too. Q stretches his fingers to press them against James' jaw, following the tense line to the tendon that holds his teeth clenched behind thinned lips. Softly he strokes, to ease away that strain. Softly he soothes the gathered muscles beneath his agent's eye, and from across his brow. Spreading his slender hand, he runs it over James' hair to calm him again, and guide their mouths together to touch.

And hold.

And keep.

"Would it help?" Q asks, brows knit. "If I called you. Or got in touch some other way. Not only for the nightmares, but since I don't sleep anyway, there seems little harm in being close to you at least like that throughout the night." He bites his lip and releases it with a shake of his head. "It's only that I don't..."

"You don't?"

"This has made us formidable," says Q. "And it has made us weak, if only to the other. I won't let myself become a distraction that might compromise you. I need you to come home to me, whole and healthy and grousing at the cats."

“I hate your bloody cats,” Bond murmurs obediently. He can feel Q smiling at him even though he keeps his eyes closed, allowing himself to enjoy the familiar and welcome touches of the man before him. It has made him weak, weak to emotions he is usually so good at controlling, weak to desire to return home, weak to letting his thoughts wander to sleepy green eyes and slept-on curly hair and elegant hands.

“It will worry me more, distract me more,” Bond says softly, “if you don’t call. Hell, keep communication open all bloody night if you have to. I’m used to falling asleep to the sound of you breathing near me.”

Q's cheeks scald scarlet at the words, heart jogging quicker. He tucks a kiss to the corner of Bond's lips and another to their center, sweetly sharing warmth between them, hand against his agent's cheek. The nightmare seems now a distant memory, fading and fuzzing away like the words he tried to read on his screen. It seems silly, or so Q tells himself to make that humming, flatline silence seem further away.

He manages a smile, held where Bond can feel it against his cheek as he murmurs, "I hope you're not only trying to seduce me into saying filthy things to you, 007."

"Do I have to seduce you into that? I'll get started on it right away," he says, hand dropping to the slope at the small of his quartermaster's back.

"No," Q laughs, squirming. "You needn't. But if it's on coms, it's being recorded."

"Can't you mute it?"

"Not all night. Not without M calling me to task for it. To be fair, her having to hear us is the barest price for her to pay to keep us on active duty," Q adds, smile widening.

“M knows,” Bond snorts. “And considering she knows, and does nothing about it, leads me to think that she would hardly care were she to walk into your office at a quarter past three in the morning and hear that we are doing terribly depraved things like sleeping together across continents.”

“You snore, sometimes.”

“Good, she can be privy to that then. See what she’s missing out on.”

Q laughs and James kisses him, sleepy and slow, and tugs the blanket down a little so they can breathe. It is still ungodly early, perhaps just past three in the morning, perhaps just after. They have time, yet, to sleep and doze and touch each other with hands and mouths and heavy bodies.

With a slow nuzzle, James hums a sigh and settles on the same pillow Q lies on, letting his eyes close. Q’s eyes, however, remain open - just enough that the world around Bond blurs to shadow. He sees nothing less than the man he’d move the world for before him. He wants nothing more.

At the time that M’s knowledge was intimated without question - with a dry remark about ‘taking their work home with them to an unexpected level’ - Q responded with a nameless defense of the Theban Band, Greek soldiers coupled together whose affection made them fiercer than they’d have been without. She’d not been particularly impressed, although in her way is she rarely impressed by much of anything, but the comparison seems increasingly apt.

Bond takes more care around corners of secure areas and conversation alike, knowing that the work he does will not only give him greater chance of returning home, but that he is protecting home itself and Q in it. Q spends long hours in research and hands-on manufacturing to preempt problems with useful devices, and volunteers longer hours to personally oversee Bond’s missions, knowing that even in such a space space as Q Division, he can help keep his agent safe. They have merged together in body and in thought and in the ache of their hearts.

He touches with feathersoft fingertips along the smooth scars and rough stubble that lines his lover’s jaw. He follows it down to his throat, past the ridge of his collarbone, to his heart beating steady. They may not have all that they desire for their shared lives, but they have this. They may not have forever, but they have now.

And for now, knowing that, they have reason enough to carry on.

“I can hear the cogs turning,” Bond mumbles, smiling when Q laughs softly. “Turn that mighty mind of yours off for a few hours, for God’s sake.”

“Doesn’t work that way, I’m afraid. Lucky you.” Q continues his gentle exploration, fingers tripping across Bond’s slow-rising chest to walk up his sternum. He presses along the basin at the base of his throat, up over his Adam’s apple that vibrates with a hum. The quartermaster’s nose wrinkles in delight. “Once I’m awake, it’s off to the races.”

“Even computers have to be shut off sooner or later.”

“Not the important ones.”

“Q.” It’s a warning, as a low growl is from a predator protecting his territory and reminding those passing through to keep on walking. The quartermaster simply traces his fingers, splayed, under Bond’s chin. “If you think I won't turn you over and swallow you down to exhaust you properly you are very wrong.”

Q clicks his tongue, a mild chastisement that sends a shiver through his agent. His smile widens and he bites his lip as he traces over Bond’s own, parted just enough that he can feel the heat of his breath on the pads of his fingers. “You’re right,” he agrees, “in that I don’t think you will.”

“Shall I prove you wrong?”

“You won’t,” Q decides, playful beneath their nest of blankets, the cats curled at their feet. Indeed, he is very suddenly and entirely awake, so much so that Bond recalls the cups of coffee he drinks compulsively when they’re on assignment together and marvels at how exhausted his quartermaster must be to need them.

“You know I love being right.”

“I know you love sleeping more. It’s understandable, really, past a certain age one needs longer hours to reach a quality rest.”

Q makes a sound, then, that he would never admit to making, when James catches his leg against him and upturns him onto the bed. He kneels over him with hands on either side of Q’s face, his own near enough to feel his breaths against Q’s lips. The cats scatter.

“One day I will have you over my knee for the age comments,” he warns, smiling wide though he, unlike Q, is still genuinely slow with sleep. “I’ll have you know I am in fantastic physical shape.” Q merely runs his fingers down Bond’s bare front and catches his thumb against his navel. “And that I keep my word.”

In the low light, Q’s blush is a shadow across his cheeks, darkening as he leans up to seek a kiss. When denied, he grins. A lifted hand is held gently down, and the other in turn, and so restrained Q’s lips part with another little noise, far less dismayed than the one before.

It’s all worth it, in moments like these - all the endless risk and the bloody miserable angst that comes with it made worthwhile. They banter and tease like schoolboys. They shag with just as much youthful abandon. But they kiss, now, with an unvoiced awareness that neither will find another who pleases them so entirely and who knows them so completely.

Q parts his lips and Bond’s follow, spreading wide and twisting closed again. He catches Q’s lower lip between his own and sucks to feel his quartermaster shiver and arch.

“I believe you,” Q murmurs, as their kisses brush in whispered punctuation to their heartbeats. “One might even say your word is bond.”

“I’ll start collecting these as marks against your name,” James purrs against him, shifting now to kiss across Q’s jaw, down to the silky skin beneath his chin, lower still to his throat. “Or,” he pauses, considers, and licks his lips before bending to suck a mark, dark and lovely, against Q’s collarbone. “I could just keep them here.”

Q’s settled heart startles to life again, sides rising and falling not from panic now but from delight. “That,” he says, rendered uncharacteristically ineloquent. “Do that, 007.”

“Bossy,” clucks Bond, before he brings his lips to the other clavicle and curls his lips against it. Tongue stroking as he sucks a kiss there, each pulse of pressure against Q’s skin tugs his little moans higher, higher, pleasure to near-pain from the sheer stimulation of it. He melts in voice and body alike when Bond relents to lick soothing across the reddening mark left in his wake. “Anything else smart to say?”

“Always,” Q laughs, before he can stop himself, heels pushing away the sheets as he arches. “Why else would anyone keep me around?”

“Mm, no one else will get to,” Bond purrs against him, nipping playfully at Q’s skin as he lowers the loose neck of his shirt enough to. Then he forgoes that and seeks with his hands beneath it instead, not even to remove, just to bunch up against his wrists so he can kiss Q’s stomach that twitches and sucks in from his lips. “That tongue of yours will get bruises kissed all over your skin, quartermaster - you’ve been warned.”

A deliberate lick to have Q squirming and laughing distracts him enough that Bond can slip his fingers beneath the elastic waistband and draw his sleep shorts down pale thighs. Without warning or preamble, he takes Q into his mouth and hums as he pulls off again.

Q’s hands drop trembling to Bond’s hair and tug through ashen blonde strands, cropped but enough still to grasp. His sass is lost to a helpless whimper, his cock still soft when this all began, but growing fuller by the heartbeat as Q’s blood rushes to fill it and leaves him dizzy. A sigh against his stiffening member pulls his eyes open enough to watch, grinning crooked when he meets Bond’s eyes in doing so.

His grin falters; his jaw slackens. The hot spread of his agent’s tongue leaves damp the underside of his cock and brings it to rest against his belly. Another lick against the vein pulsing swift pushes a pitchy little noise from the squirming quartermaster even as he lets his knees fall and his thighs spread.

“You’re a menace,” Q scolds him fondly.

“Yes,” Bond purrs, grinning against the thin sensitive skin of Q’s thigh before nipping there too. “In fact, I am.”

“James.”

“I did warn you, darling,” he murmurs, bending his head a little further to suck the silken skin of Q’s balls between his lips.

There is light in the darkness, sparks flashing behind Q’s eyelids when they flutter closed. There is warmth in the wintery chill of the old house, encompassing his entire body from the source of Bond’s mouth. The earth itself seems to shift for them as Q trembles and tries to steady himself with a firmer grip against Bond’s hair.

Q laughs, suddenly, at the thought of their forays being overheard, but a firm suck pulling pressure against his scrotum shivers his voice to a wordless plea. He had hoped, in settling together after the shock of night-terror, that they would speak a little while, lay close and make the other laugh. They did that, too, and though Q never intended for this to follow, what sweeter way is there for them to confirm their own livelihood? They are not dead yet. They are not vanished to the other by force of government or cruel fate. They are here and whole enough to make love like this, with ferocious vigor and a fierce grasp on life while they have it to share.

Bond’s tongue rolls against wrinkled skin, heavy in his mouth but tightening with the same quickened pulse that stiffens Q’s cock above him. Little coiling motions twist through his quartermaster’s body, thighs tightening, knees spreading, belly clenching, lips parting to moan. He squirms with abandon, and little rocking motions back and forth to rut against the air. He is lovely like this.

He is lovely always.

James does not tease lower than he sucks now, that will be for another time, perhaps a way to wake Q in the morning, splayed on his stomach with his hips in the air and his hand between his legs. But for now, for now there is just a promise to keep. He sucks and presses hot wet kisses to sensitive skin. He relishes the little sweet sounds, the tug against his hair, everything.

He does not want to imagine what Q dreamed. 

He has dreamed similar things. He has dreamed terrible things.

But here, now, they are safe and they are together.

Bond in his desire to serve, a genuine one, despite how equally he enjoys bucking against authority, follows his imperious little quartermaster’s demand when his hair is tugged. A firm suck as retribution spins Q’s voice from him and lifts his hips from the bed, and before he can lower them, Bond grasps his bottom with both hands to keep him high. He curls a kiss against the base of his rigid length, velvety skin pulled taut and warm.

“Your words, Q, have you forgotten them already?” The agent purrs, and Q growls as he’s teased with the tip of Bond’s tongue. It’s a pitiful noise, like a particularly cute puppy trying to make itself seem fierce.

“James,” he pleads, instead, when his attempt to snarl Bond into submission fails spectacularly. “Don’t make me make you do it. I’ll do the voice, I swear I will, but don’t make me.” He bends, shuddering blissfully when Bond turns a scrubby cheek against his shaft. “Do it because you want to do it,” Q laughs, little, “not because I’ve made you. Next time I’ll make you do all sorts of terrible things, I promise.”

“I want to do terrible things to you anyway, you hardly have to ask,” Bond laughs, sucking softly against the head, over and over before pulling back and lifting light eyes to Q where he presses to the sheets on his shoulders, cheeks flushed and lips bitten. “It’s merely polite to ask.”

With another long, deliberate suck, Q is lowered to the bed and James spreads languid over it, mouthing against the wet skin. “I want you, my dear, in every way.”

Then the teasing stops, as much as teasing goes. Bond takes Q to the back of his throat and hums as he pulls him free once more. Again and again, throat clicking and spit slick between them as he draws off to catch his breath before engulfing him in delicious heat again. He’s hard too, and more than willing to wait until morning to satisfy that particular urge, certain Q will be more than happy to oblige, and awake earlier anyway to start.

Here, Q finds his voice again. He praises James his skill in this, in everything; he worships him in whimpered words that spill forth on every breath. Thrusting easy against steady pressure, over strong tongue, past soft familiar lips, Q finds a rhythm in their joining. Undulations in body and speech, writhing adoration and confession alike. He loves this. He thinks of this often. He should never have doubted Bond’s skill would extend to truly everything he touches. He’ll never doubt him again.

He wants more.

Harder.

Deeper.

He needs him.

Wants him.

Loves him.

And those words slip free amongst the rest, as they have now more than once. Braided among murmured affections, each time it jolts Bond’s heart to his throat, though he ducks his head and works himself lower onto Q’s cock to ease his pulse back down again. Q cares too much about the things he says, run through countless mental gymnastics before he allows them breath, for it to be unintentional.

And yet he’s never said it outright; never waited expectant nor demanded to hear it in return. It’s passed between them as easy as their kisses come, as languid and delicious as their sex, as warm as evenings curled sleepy against the other. Just as readily as his words returned to him, they rise again now to a moan, a hitched alarm warning him of his imminent climax.

James takes it into stride, adjusts his position, swallows when Q breaks with a soft whimper of need and shivers. He sucks until the skin grows too sensitive and Q gasps and squirms against him. He kisses his way to his thighs and up them and over trembling stomach and higher still. He helps Q peel away his shirt, too hot, now, to stay in it, and lays heavy atop him, feeding him soft kisses until Q’s smile is too wide to return them.

“Now,” James murmurs, voice low and purring-soft. “My sleepless wonder, will you rest?”

Q shakes his head, laughs, nods, turns when Bond turns him to be spooned against taut stomach and strong legs. He can feel the agent hard behind him but he makes no move to push, so Q doesn’t either. Q just relishes the heaviness of Bond’s arms against him, the warmth of him, the nuzzling against his ear.

“Sleep,” James mumbles. “Sleep. We’re safe, and warm, and bloody lucky to have days off. And -”

“And?”

“And I love you, you git.”

Q’s eyes open again, a slow blink as the words echo inside himself. A breath of laughter finds the backs of his fingers held against his ruddy cheek to cool away the blush, before Bond’s hand slips beneath the other and gently turns him. Over Q’s shoulder they kiss, their confessions caught against their lips.

“To the ends of the earth,” Q whispers, resting back against the pillow and bringing Bond’s fingers to his mouth. “And back again.”


	9. Hibernation Mode

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Q moves just fast enough to stop Bond from undoing his belt, gaze narrowing behind his glasses. “And you?” The quartermaster asks, turning just enough to watch his agent from the corners of his eyes. “M will have a fit if she finds you here, when you’re meant to be recovering somewhere warm and peaceful. The caverns of Q Division hardly qualify. And if you move your hand again, you’re going to learn what a soldering iron feels like against bare skin.”_

It has been all too often noted, with varying degrees of surprise and dismay, that Q is a young man of exacting expectations. When work needs to be done, Q demands hustle from his employees - or “the minions”, as he’s often scolded Bond for calling them. When he himself is needed for a job, he holds himself to the same standards, forgoing all degrees of essential staples of existence - sleep, eating, bathing, he’s not proud to admit - in order to see his work through.

Bond, by compare, is far more free-wheeling. Flexible, he would say. Careless, Q would answer instead. Whereas Q operates on reason, Bond is a creature of instinct. He has to be, in order to traverse the dangerous terrains of his field work. He must be ready at a moment’s notice, prepared to act in a manner nearly beyond thought and given instead to a nearly superhuman sense of intuition and reflex.

It’s impressive when he does it in the field, often leaving Q Branch gaping at their screens.

It’s less bloody impressive when he’s on leave, and attempting to stick his hands down Q’s trousers as he stands over his schematics.

“You’ve no work to do,” Bond tells him, lips tracing warmth against his neck. “I know you don’t. All the current work’s being overseen by your minions, and the schedule says -”

“The schedule doesn’t apply to me.”

“It says that you’re to be on much-needed vacation right now.”

“What better time to work on something new for you to demolish?”

Q moves just fast enough to stop Bond from undoing his belt, gaze narrowing behind his glasses. “And you?” The quartermaster asks, turning just enough to watch his agent from the corners of his eyes. “M will have a fit if she finds you here, when you’re meant to be recovering somewhere warm and peaceful. The caverns of Q Division hardly qualify. And if you move your hand again, you’re going to learn what a soldering iron feels like against bare skin.”

So Bond moves his lips instead, in slow deliberate kisses down from Q's ear to his neck to his shoulder. They are both on mandatory vacation, Bond sent down from fieldwork and Q given a signed paper less requesting and more demanding he take two weeks to rest.

“I can do a lot without the use of my hands,” Bond whispers. “Would you care to test the theory with silk ties and heavy scarves and the four poster in my bedroom?”

Q manages to restrain the sound that builds at his throat, but cannot manage the same for the sudden swelling tension that pools in his belly and tugs between his legs. Just a single beat in time with his pulse, but enough that Bond purrs a pleased note against Q’s ear. The quartermaster twists his head just in time to avoid Bond catching his earlobe between his lips.

Therein lies certain defeat, and Q’s not ready to yield the battle yet.

Q hums and leans back against Bond a little, turning his head to nuzzle his cheek, fingers still braced against his schematics. “Bound and trussed pretty as a Christmas present,” he murmurs. “The brave 007, slayer of villains and wooer of women, helpless and hard before me.”

“Yes,” Bond whispers, fingers twitching against Q’s belt buckle before a subtle move of his quartermaster’s hand towards the soldering iron stops him. “Please, darling. I’ll beg you if I must.”

With a little laugh, Q rubs their cheeks together and lets his eyes close. “A loop of silk around your eyes.”

“Darling, please.”

“Another between your teeth to hold your tongue from any speaking.”

“Anything.”

Q draws a breath and feels Bond do the same in sympathy, held as the quartermaster leans back to whisper in his ear.

“You’re a clever man, 007. Go tie yourself up. I’m sure I’ll be home eventually.”

And with that, Q kisses his cheek, gathers his schematics in a less-than-organized heap, and clutches them to his chest as he seeks out quieter quarters.

With a groan, Bond watches him move, following only when he has settled the heat between his legs enough to walk without incident.

“You’ll forget,” he laughs. “And go home to the bloody cats.”

Q snorts, but doesn't deny it. There have been several memorable evenings where he has left his agent to his own devices with a promise to return that he never kept. Hardly for lack of desire, and more because his mind found ways to distract him, as Bond tries to now, from whatever is at hand.

“A compromise, then,” Bond offers. “Do you care to take a break, quartermaster?”

Q stops and ducks his head. Bottom lip pinned between his teeth, he tries not to grin and fails entirely. He thinks of the prettier, brighter, less abrasive students would at times be relentlessly pursued by a would-be suitor, pleading for sex. A date. A drink. A look. Anything at all. Q has never been on either side of that equation until now.

He couldn’t say that he minds it, in truth.

With a flick of the lights to shut off the workshop behind him, he continues on down the hall, heels echoing as he heads towards his office. There’s a pause but Bond follows, and Q tries not to laugh when his agent makes a dismayed sound low in his throat.

“You’ve hardly let me work at all,” Q tells him. “From what would I be taking a break?”

“From my relentless pursuit,” the man declares. “I do promise, though, that once you succumb to it, I will return to being just as relentless after.”

He catches Q around the middle before he can open the door and kisses him on the cheek, holding Q just high enough that he pushes to his toes to keep balance.

“Q, we both have mandatory time out from this place, that you complain we never get together, and here you are making - what even is that?”

Q stares for a moment, cheeks rosy and glasses tilted slightly off center. He remains on his toes, held in place against his agent, and drops his gaze to the sheaves of paper now crushed between them. When he answers, it’s in a mumble, until Bond catches his chin to lift his attention back, and Q’s lips part breathless.

“A coffee maker,” he whispers.

“What does it do?”

Q parts his lips with his tongue, brow creased. “It makes coffee.”

Bond blinks, Q blinks back, and then with a heavy sigh the agent bends and hoists his lover onto his shoulder.

“Alright, smartass,” he says, ignoring the struggle and smiling at the laughter. “Clearly your mind needs a rest. I’m taking you home.”

“But -”

“Either home, I suppose.”

“007.”

“Is currently unavailable,” Bond says, trudging back through the echoing hall of the main Q Branch chamber. “As he is carrying out the most vital mission of his life. Do call back.”

“Bond,” hisses Q, held nearly upside down by the backs of his knees, still desperately clutching his blueprints. “This is unprofessional.”

“Good thing we’re both on holiday.”

“Someone is going to see, James, put me -” A silence falls around them, and Q looks up to take in the wide-eyed stares of his once-obedient employees. Never in the history of MI6 has Q Branch been so quiet. He shoves his glasses back up his nose, and nearly drops his papers. “Eyes on your screens!”

To whatever credit he has left, fading by the footstep as he’s carted away, they do so nearly in unison.

Bond allows himself to laugh when they are out of earshot, allows himself to set Q to the floor and immediately kiss him before he can protest, one hand up to fix his glasses as he does, the other down to catch stray papers should they fall.

“Home?” He murmurs, delighted entirely by their performance and utterly uncaring for what will be said about either of them.

“There are so many - so very many - epithets I wish to call you right now that I hardly know where to begin.”

“Save them,” Bond purrs, a hand against Q’s cheek to turn him back as the quartermaster looks mournfully back towards his division. “I’ll give you better reason to use them later.”

At this, Q smiles wide, won over as he knew he would be, and as he always is by his wonderfully irritating and irritatingly wonderful agent. He hides a kiss against Bond’s palm and then lays his cheek in it. His eyes narrow in a sly smile as their gaze meets.

“Carry my homework for me?”

Without a word, Bond takes the pages, shuffling them together in a semblance of order before carefully folding them in half to carry more easily.

“Why don't we stay in London this evening?” He suggests as they start to walk through the rest of MI6, keeping a respectable distance here, though James wants nothing more than to hold Q’s hand, to raise a petulant eyebrow at anyone who questions his choice in partner. He feels giddy, a schoolboy with a crush.

Q hums, as if there’s some lingering doubt. “The cats -”

“Have been fed and watered, before I left to come and fetch you. They’ll be more than comfortable until tomorrow. And,” Bond says, “I scooped.”

At this, Q’s facade falls away with a sudden laugh. He wraps an arm around himself, his other hand pressed to his mouth, watching Bond beside him. “You didn’t.”

“I certainly did. I had to ensure that there were no excuses, especially cat shit.”

“I suppose it says a great deal about me that I’m not certain I’ve ever heard anything more romantic,” Q says, swiping his card to the garage and allowing Bond to hold the door for him. “I feel positively wooed, 007.”

“Perfect,” the agent grins, leaning in when the door closes to nuzzle his partner, catching a chaste little kiss before Q squirms free again. “I’m making dinner.”

“And breakfast?”

“I could be convinced,” James shrugs, moving to his car, the lock beeping as he lifts his keys to open it. “Now, for the love of god get in so I can kiss you properly.”

Q does. And Bond does, too, sliding Q’s blueprints back to him as their mouths twine together, both smiling wide enough that they can hardly manage.

\---

“What is it really?” Bond asks, as Q spreads the papers flat across the coffee table to let them uncurl.

“I told you already.”

“It’s really a coffee maker?”

“What else would it be?”

The question widens Q’s eyes, and Bond’s in turn. He knows that look all too well. It’s the same one that drives Q mumbling from bed in the middle of the night, and the same one that keeps him up until dawn muttering over endless arrays of mathematical formulas. Without hesitation, Bond returns from the kitchen to where his engineer sits staring at his schematics as if scrying for the future, and Bond gathers them in a neat roll.

“Holiday,” he reminds him. “Beginning now.”

“But what if it -”

“Now.”

“Hang on, if I built a secondary reservoir -”

“Now,” Bond grunts, replacing the schematics in Q’s hands with spring onions and a knife in a plastic sheath. “Help me make dinner?”

“I thought you were -”

“If this is the only way to keep you out of the damned plans, I will allow you into the kitchen.”

“Allow?” Q laughs, but he follows on socked feet to the large kitchen after Bond, taking his place beside him and pulling up a chopping board. “I’ll have you know, I am hardly a disaster in the kitchen.”

“No, you are quite the gourmand,” James tells him. “Presenting such wonders as al dente cup noodles and not-quite-hot-but-hot-enough leftover pizza.”

“You didn’t mind when I warmed it for you.”

“Hardly the breakfast I’d imagined when you assured me you were going to make it that morning.”

“I did the best I could on short notice,” Q smiles, removing the sheath and aligning the onions in tidy rows. “The sun came up far faster than I expected. It has that effect when one is accustomed to the glow of a screen.”

He catches Bond around the waist as he passes, knife in his other hand held safely to the cutting board. Reeling his agent in, he kisses his chin. His nose. Each corner of his mouth and finally holds one lingering to his bottom lip, smile widening.

“I’m happy to admit to defeat in the arena of cooking, to one with far superior skill,” Q murmurs.

“I will be sure to pass your compliments on to Peter,” James replies and smiles when his shoulder is shoved gently by Q’s. 

In the months they have had this, at first both afraid that this would be nothing but a casual quick fling - Q because surely, surely, 007 had better targets to seek, and James because surely, surely, someone as smart as Q would not tolerate him for so long. Then, slowly as they settled into routines and began to leave clothes at the other's home, toiletries, occasionally themselves… in that time, they have found in the other the confidence and gentleness they need in equal measure.

“What are we making?”

“Perhaps soup,” Bond replies, slicing potatoes and raising his eyes to Q when he raises a brow. “For the first course, obviously.”

“Soups are deceptively simple. It’s less a matter of tossing a bunch of things into a pot,” Q says, even as he wipes his blade free of little onion slices into a simmering pot, “and more a matter of time. The flavors need hours to properly develop.”

“Or three minutes with water from the kettle in a styrofoam cup.”

“Leave my pot noodles out of this,” Q grins. “I’m only saying that there’s time for us to leave this to stew, and perhaps return to your earlier suggestion of silken ties and your four-post bed.”

Bond’s brows lift in consideration, and Q watches him with his bottom lip held between his teeth, big teeth revealed in bright anticipation. Both are in jumpers and slacks, dressed down for what was meant to be a day off and now has become again. Q’s fits full and snuggly against his body, a high fluffy turtleneck just beneath his chin. Bond is sleek, fitted, and all the better for how fit he is. Q makes a small sound as he takes him in, thick arms and flat stomach, back up to broad chest and wide shoulders…

“Or,” Bond says, “we will use that time to begin the next course.”

Q’s lips part in silence.

“All’s fair in love and war,” Bond says, sliding a carrot across the counter to his quartermaster. “And you made me wait all bloody day for a coffee maker.”

With a narrow smile, Q inclines his head in allowance for this, and his heart races at the words. The game is afoot and his body thrills at it, knowing that it will inevitably end in a ferocious shag and whispered tenderness and relieved that it is not only for today, but tomorrow, the next day. Two entire weeks that they can keep house together, and rut together, and kiss and cook and play and maybe even go for a drive just to see the other somewhere new.

He spreads his fingers along the vegetable just gently enough that he knows his agent is watching, and a swift slice cuts it in half. Bond winces.

“I think you forget how much practice I’ve had in this,” Q tells him. “Waiting. Tending to matters at hand without assistance. Unlike certain parties who have it off in exotic locales with new partners on a damn near daily basis.”

“It is exhausting,” Bond laments, “being in exotic locales with such dull people who expect so little. I spend more time imagining showing you the dawn over Rio, or the display of stars over Hawaii than I do getting off to foreign hands in foreign lands.”

Bond leans over to snag a piece of carrot and crunches it deliberately as he regards his quartermaster. Q smiles, eyes crinkled in the corners and bottom lip between his teeth, before he ducks his head to focus on his work.

“I do find it hard to believe that it’s not exciting, in compare to shagging the same person over and over,” Q says. “While his nosy cats watch.”

“Not when that same person is extraordinary. They watch?”

“Of course they do. Flatterer.” Q skims the slices from his knife into the pot, fingers drumming against the cutting board as he seeks out what’s next. “I do wish you’d enjoy yourself, at least, if it has to be this way. I mean, I’m glad you don’t, of course, it’s enormously soothing to my ego, but it seems such a waste to be miserable about it. Soon enough, if we both survive MI6, we’ll be old and grumpy -”

Bond lifts a brow.

“Grumpier,” Q corrects, amused, “and we’ll tire of each other, won’t we? And then you’ll look back on all these tawdry adventures and say, ‘damn that devilishly clever and charming quartermaster, damn him for infiltrating all of my affairs’.”

“‘Thank God he’s right there in the next room to go and yell at, waving my walking stick’,” Bond concludes, not missing a beat. He leans in to kiss Q’s cheek, a lingering and gentle thing, and passes him some of the potatoes he himself had not finished cutting, skimming his own into the bubbling pot. 

It is easy. Some days it seems too easy. They get along, already, like a couple many months - perhaps years - together. Banter and laughter, and sometimes hours of quiet that never feel awkward. They read, they work, they sleep together. The sex is exceptional, and both are delighted by the other’s genuine desire to forgo propriety and act like a bloody teenager first discovering himself.

“You’ll forgive me being a sap -”

“Will I?”

“Certainly. When I tell you I love you, you should.”

Q’s nose wrinkles in delight, grinning so wide that he stops chopping to bring a hand to his mouth and tries to hide it. It’s unbelievable, truly, to hear those words from this man. Rarely said but always meant, they spread through Q’s chest with such fierce warmth that it’s nearly hard to breathe. But he clears his throat, steadies his expression, and with a prim lift of his chin, returns to work.

“Forgiven,” Q tells him.

“Is that all?”

With a raised brow, Q regards his agent over his glasses, and says, “I love you too. And I look forward to boring you to tears for many years to come.”

For a while they work in quiet, adding more to the soup, seasoning and tasting, a spoon shared between chaste little kisses, and then the soup is set to simmer. James moves to duck his head and nuzzle against Q’s cheek, against his temple, his hair. Sleepy and pleased, comfortable and warm.

“The best flavor comes when you let it simmer for an hour or two,” he mumbles, invitation clear and smile warm when it spreads.

Q gathers Bond’s arms around his middle, relishing always how small and safe he feels within his agent’s embrace. He skims his fingers, stroking softly, over the muscles of James’ forearms, up to the delicate insides of his elbows where his sleeves are folded, back down again. A kiss against his cheek turns his head a little and Q grins.

“Ample time to work on the following courses,” he reminds him, laughing as Bond curses and tightens his arms a little. A swift movement finds Q upturned, held across his agent’s arms, long legs dangling.

“You’ll already be eating better than you have in days. Weeks.”

“Since the Savoy, I imagine,” Q laughs, as he wraps his arms up around James’ neck to be carried from the kitchen.

“We can spread the courses out a few days, then,” James says, sidestepping a table as he makes his way through the living room. “Second course tomorrow. Dessert on Thursday.”

“Slowly weaning me onto good food are you?”

“I’m trying,” James laughs, turning to walk them sideways through the wide doors of the bedroom before depositing Q to bed with a bounce. He crawls up after, smiling as Q laughs, and settles with his arms around Q’s middle. His head rests on his flat stomach, eyes closing, content to stay this way for hours if that’s all they end up doing. He hums low and warm when Q’s fingers spread through his hair, scratch against his scalp and send shivers down his spine.

“No wonder Peter’s so keen on you,” Q murmurs, stretching and settling comfortably. “You’re naught but a big cat yourself.”

“Should I purr for you?”

“You do already, often. And you shed less.”

“Give it a few more years,” he says, and Q laughs against the backs of his fingers. The others splay and curl, stretch and knead lightly tugging through Bond’s hair, stroking down to the fine hairs on his neck, back up again to draw fingernails over his scalp.

They lay together in quiet solace, neither groping - in any sense - for more than all that they already have. A comfortable bed and dinner on the stove. Each other, pressed close, and the rhythm of their hearts that seem to fall in sync. Time, an extraordinary rarity, and nothing to move them from just where they are.

“I think I’d still find you unfairly handsome,” Q says.

“You think.”

“I can’t know until I see you all podgy and balding. I’d certainly find it satisfying, at any rate.”

“When you remain as lithe and lovely by the time you’re my age? Terrible. There is no justice in this world.”

With a groan and a shift, James kisses against Q’s stomach and leaves the warmth of it for the flat panes of his chest, feeling his heart beat steady and slow through the thick woolen turtleneck he wears. Without thought, he slips a hand beneath it, just splaying his palm over the bare outline of muscles at his hip, a little higher.

There is no demand there, just a seeking for warmth and touch and closeness.

Should this be all he had, laying in Q’s lap being petted, Bond would be entirely happy indeed.

He follows the lines of Q’s ribs, made prominent when he sucks in a breath in wariness of a tickling. None comes, however, and Q laughs a little when he sighs. He drapes an arm across his brow and watches his agent from beneath. Lingering kisses against well-loved wool to feel Q’s body heat from beneath. Calloused hands skimming pale skin to learn him touch by touch. A whisper of fabric as Q lifts a knee and lets it tilt to the bed before stretching down to pointed toes again, and finally he tugs only lightly at Bond’s hair to bring him higher.

Their kiss closes softly, only to part again. Tilting together, their mouths turn in a tandem rhythm, languid and lazy. Q ducks his head to press their brows together, nuzzling alongside Bond’s nose until their lips brush, teasing near a kiss but not yet allowing it, grin spreading with each near connection.

“Keep up, 007.”

“With you?” James grins. “I think I will try the rest of my life and never quite manage.”

His hands seek higher as he lets his eyes close and his breathing ease as he thumbs against a nipple until peaks, turns his head against Q’s chest just to feel him there, present and alive and relaxing, even if just a little. He teases but he does not push, enough to have Q’s breathing hitch, enough to feel the hand in his hair grasp it and let it go.

He arches up to kiss Q again, free hand up to cup his face as he smiles against him.

“What would you have of me, then, quartermaster?”

Everything. Everything, Q wants to say, because it’s what James has offered him. Again and again, for months, amidst stroppy fits with the other and terrifying nights of silence vast distances apart, amidst sunlit mornings and days in which even seeing the other in passing through headquarters has been enough to bolster them both. He wants to see the sun come up over Rio. He wants to see the stars in Hawaii.

He wants everything with Bond, and yet he needs nothing more than what they have here and now.

“This,” Q says, his hand framing Bond’s cheek. “For as long as we can keep it.”

“Until one of us has to get up to turn off the stove,” James confirms, smiling wide when he gets a gentle slap in reprimand. Then he leans in and kisses Q again, deep and lingering and slow, and shift around so that his other hand is beneath Q’s sweater, the other nipple teased, and he can lie against Q’s side as he had before.

Of all the people who Bond has known through the years, the countless beds he has slept in and climbed free of, the countless people who have claimed to love him but who had left at the first sign of another, none have given him this. Quiet days and no demands. A hand to his hair enough to put him to sleep, curling arms around a willing and warm body that would wriggle back against him.

He enjoys sex. He enjoys playing, teasing, pushing. But more than that, 007, James Bond, a man with a license to kill, enjoys security. Enjoys comfort. Enjoys this.

And the sweet little sound that parts Q’s lips is a welcome bonus.

He slides his hands to Bond’s chest as his own is handled bare, rough fingers stroking soft against sensitive nipples. Devoted attention to them has been enough to pull his climax from him prematurely, laved over by a hot tongue and sucked by firm lips. Even this gentle touch is enough to scald his cheeks to scarlet, blush blossoming beneath his eyes and over the bridge of his nose. Q pays no mind to his glasses, sitting crooked as he turns himself to face his agent, both on their sides. He pays no mind to the tangle of fabric keeping their bodies apart by only fibers.

“You know how this will end,” he whispers, words interspersed with needy, small kisses against Bond’s smile. “You asleep and snoring, but awake enough to clutch me close when I try to stand and save our supper.”

“I would hate to break such an established routine by staying awake then,” James laughs, curling his arm further around Q, beneath his sweater, as he presses closer, hands caught between them, clutching gently at Bond’s jumper. “Perhaps, then, I should cling to you now, so you attempt to go and save it prematurely, allowing us both rest when you return.”

“Tempting.”

“How can I tempt you further?” Bond grins, watching Q with narrowed eyes as the younger man brings up a hand to draw his fingertip over his nose and down to the tip. Bond crosses his eyes to see it and they both snort, silly as children.

“Overachiever,” Q murmurs, letting his finger drift lower to the bow of Bond’s lips. “Don’t you know how much you tempt me already, just with a look? From my focus. My work. From salvaging our soup,” he says. His grin widens and he snorts a soft laugh as Bond curls his lips around Q’s fingertip. “Forgive me -”

“For telling me you love me?”

“For being a sap,” Q continues, undaunted.

“Tell me that you love me,” grins Bond.

“God, you’re a bloody nuisance. I want to tell you -”

“That you love me, I know, so say it already.”

“Do shut up,” Q laughs, clasping Bond’s cheeks and squeezing into a long kiss to quiet him. “Yes,” he whispers. “Yes, I love you, and I want to wake up beside you as many times as we possibly can before we’re off holiday. There. That’s what I was trying to say, you pushy git.”

“Marvelous,” his agent grins, nosing against Q until the younger man lets him go and crawls free from hands and sheets and warmth to turn off the stove. He checks the locks and cuts the lights. It’s still early, just nearing early evening, but both are exhausted, both content to simply lie together and doze for as long as they need.

They have two weeks. Two blissful bloody weeks to spend doing nothing at all. Here, at Q’s, with the cats, without them. James already considers plans they could make, places they could see together.

When Q returns to bed, James reaches for him blindly and tugs him close. Still clothed, both nestle into the messed nest of blankets and neither take long to fall asleep, Bond’s nose buried in the soft curls at the back of Q’s head, Q pressing his arms atop James’ where he’s held.


	10. EVAL

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Lay on your belly, please,” Q tells him, stroking his knuckles softly down James’ cheek. “On the bed. Bare for me, so I can see you.”_
> 
> _“Shall I turn a light on?”_
> 
> _“No, 007.”_

Q’s glasses fall off when he rubs the sleep from his eyes. He squints into the darkness of James’ apartment and towards window, the city far beneath, glittering light in a fuzzy glow. He tries to check his watch on the other hand but his hand doesn’t respond with anything more than pins and needles. With a grimace, he splays his fingers and tries to work feeling back into his arm, pinned in place by Bond at his side.

He lays heavy against Q’s shoulder, nuzzled against his chest. A spot beneath his mouth has dampened Q’s sweater where his agent drooled while sleeping. This is not new. This is entirely common. It is expected, even, that whenever Bond falls asleep atop him - as he is now, his head in his quartermaster’s lap, anywhere - he will drool. And Q would never in his life admit it aloud, he’d die a thousand deaths first, but each and every time, he finds it charming.

Terribly, wonderfully, disgustingly charming.

With a secret smile, he tilts his head and draws his nose through the soft, flaxen strands of Bond’s hair. He smells sweet and masculine, like clementines and sandalwood, and beneath it his own familiar smell that cascades goosebumps across Q’s skin. It’s this scent that Q chases when Bond is away for days or weeks or months. It’s this scent that he seeks out in wearing Bond’s sweaters or wrapping up in one of his scarves. He thinks of histocompatibility complexes and androsterone, of contrasting pheromone profiles and how a sound genetic match is first sensed by animals through smell.

Q sighs out softly and turns cheek against Bond’s hair, eyes closing.

“I’m going to be less a limb if you don’t move soon,” he murmurs.

There is a soft groan, sleepy and quiet, and with a fussy furrowing of his brows, Bond shifts enough for Q to free his arm. Of course, he is immediately draped over by his heavy agent as soon as he turns to his side, held fast this way instead. Slowly, deliberate, Q is spooned again and Bond snorts softly against his neck before mumbling something in a language Q can’t understand and settling his breathing again.

Q mutters a curse in response but he hardly means it, grinning sleepily against the cooler part of the pillow now beneath his cheek. Their bodies, so entirely different, fit flush together, a curve of warmth against the other. Bond’s knees fit against the backs of Q’s own. His stomach sinks against the curve of Q’s back. His cock, half-hard, nestles right against Q’s cheeks - or would, if he weren’t wearing trousers - and this is as little a surprise as the puddle drooled against his chest.

James is a far deeper sleeper than Q, difficult to awaken and trickier still to motivate towards action. He always wakes in a varying degree of arousal but it’s Q that emerges from sleep with the energy to attend it, despite Bond’s inevitable grumblings. In contrast, at the end of a very long day, it’s Q that prefers to lay lazy and be attended to by Bond, wide-awake and ferocious.

They work. For their myriad contrasts, for their seemingly endless list of poor qualities in a partner, they work.

Q lifts Bond’s hand slowly from his stomach, and brings his fingers to his lips, kissing each in turn.

Against his lips they spread, seeking the warmth and wet of his mouth - even drowsy, James find a way to press as close to Q as he can, in every way. Q smiles and Bond’s fingers gently curl to catch against his lip, shift to trace his mouth as Q closes his eyes and turns his head over and over against rough fingertips.

Slowly, from the fog of the nap they took, James emerges with a sigh, slowly opening eyes and a brief - practiced, honed - glance around the space to check for any sign of something out of place. Nothing is. It is, in fact, as it should be; Q is here in bed with him. He snakes his other arm beneath Q’s neck, hand up to sweep the messy curls from his forehead and pull Q back to arch against him. He kisses his throat, the curve where it joins his shoulder, through the woolen sweater rumpled in sleep.

He smells so good.

He smells like home.

Q doesn’t resist as he’s held and turned and groped and squeezed. If anything, he limbers more, laughing as he’s pulled flush against his agent, stretching into a shiver when drowsy kisses trail hot down to his shoulder. He reaches back to open the buttons that run from neck to shoulder, lest Bond pull them free in his sleepy ardor. His other hand remains over James’ own, pressing snug around his middle.

He doesn’t mention supper. He doesn’t care. All that matters is that this new memory is held within his internal storage, written to solid-state so that it can be accessed again when Q needs it. All that matters is how Bond’s mouth fits against the bare hollow where his neck curves to his shoulder, and how rough his voice is made by sleep when he tells Q, “Off.”

Q squirms, grinning crooked, and grasps the hem of his sweater but Bond holds him tight even still. Another twist finds Bond’s leg over both his own. Held all but pinned by him, Q gives up with a helpless, snorting laugh.

“Stubborn,” Bond mumbles, opening one eye to look at Q properly, smiling when the younger man laughs, blushing already from the sheer joy of being told off for something he hasn’t done, something he can’t control. “Terrible, terrible boy.”

Large hands seek beneath Q’s sweater to pull it up, and he gets up from the quartermaster enough that he can tug the thing off himself and let it fall to the floor. Q’s shirt is a mess of wrinkles and he hardly cares. With surprising dexterity, considering he is barely awake, James makes quick work of the buttons.

“I had a dream about you,” he murmurs, setting his hands on either side of Q’s stomach to stretch himself into a graceful arch and crack his back. “You were in a suit, dressed to the nines, and deliberately ignoring me at a very lavish party.”

Rolling to his back, Q runs his hands across Bond’s shoulders and down over his chest. Fingertips touch over taut stomach and then walk slowly upward again.

“I’m very good at that,” Q says, squinting up at his sleepy agent above him. “I had weeks of practice ignoring you before you cornered me. Did you try to woo me?”

“In your office? God no, I just wanted a shag.”

Q slaps lightly against Bond’s chest and bites his lip, grinning as he shakes his head. “Not there, you savage, in your dream.”

Bond grins, tilts his head. “I tried _everything_ ,” he murmurs. “I bought you drinks that you sent back. I began conversations that you rejected. I paid for your dinner -”

“You know I’m hardly wooed by money.”

“Will you let me finish?”

“This evening? We’ll see.”

James shivers, cursing and laughing and shaking his head. “In the end,” he continues, shifting to sit higher up against Q, massaging hot palms up and down his chest, to his neck, down the center to his navel, back up again. “I knelt at your feet and set my head to your lap. And then you woke me.”

Q smiles, stretching as he’s warmed by Bond’s words and hands alike. He folds his arms over his eyes and they form a little shelter around them as Bond leans low to kiss him. Q hooks his ankles together around his agent, legs spread for him to sit between, and their kiss parts with a sigh.

“You’ve figured out what wins me over,” Q says, closing his eyes as they brush their noses alongside the other.

“Mm. Subservience.”

“Gentleness,” Q tells him, taking another kiss before he adds with a grin, “but also subservience.”

“Shall I be both?” Bond murmurs, settling against Q again, more awake, now, though his expression remains beautifully soft, entirely open. He watches Q carefully, knows him, now, enough to understand when they play and when their words hold deeper meaning. This is both. To each the other is an equal, despite their fussing regarding that on occasion. To each, the other is their partner.

But there is something, since the beginning, that has been so utterly disarming at having Q be dominant between them. About having him call the shots and make the decisions. It keeps him comfortable, to be so bossy, it gives him a reason and purpose, it keeps him content. And Bond… there has never been another, man or woman, who has held such glorious, welcome power over him as his little quartermaster.

Q lowers an arm from across his brow and strokes warmly through Bond’s sleep-tousled hair. He cups his cheek, thumbing beneath his eye, and then frames his jaw in slender fingers. When he raises his chin, so too does his agent.

“All day,” Q says, “you’ve been begging for it. Not overtly, no, that’s not your style. It’s been there in hints. Jests. Intimations.” He brings their mouths close enough to kiss. “Even your dreams have echoed it.”

Bond parts his lips when the pad of Q’s thumb passes over them, before seeking between and rubbing against his tongue. He suckles, eyes hooded, focused wholly on his quartermaster.

“Remarks about tying you down helpless. Asking again and again what I want you to do. Dreaming of me rebuffing your clumsy attempts at courtship. Do you think I’ve not noticed, every time you’ve nearly gone to your knees pleading?” Q curls his thumb enough to feel Bond’s teeth press against it, and he pulls him incrementally closer. “007, if you think for a moment that you’ve what it takes to meet my expectations, dancing around the question is hardly a proper beginning.”

Bond’s eyes narrow in delight, and he sucks softly against Q’s thumb until he pulls it free and smears his lips slick.

“Perhaps I can be taught to meet expectations,” he replies, “if I am yet not good enough to, on my own.” He crosses his arms over Q’s chest and rests his chin atop, as close, still, as he was pulled and settled, obedient in not seeking another kiss until it’s given to him. It’s novel, this play, it’s delightful for them both. “Will you teach me what it takes, quartermaster?” He asks, smiling softer. “You know I want no other, seems only fair you start to show me what you want.”

Q’s smile, tilted higher to one side than the other, briefly betrays his genuine delight at the words. Gentle and subservient, all at once, each to the other.

“Lay on your belly, please,” Q tells him, stroking his knuckles softly down James’ cheek. “On the bed. Bare for me, so I can see you.”

“Shall I turn a light on?”

“No, 007.”

The answer is almost cool in its crispness, a hint of snap to it that brooks no further questions be asked. Bond’s throat clicks when he swallows and Q lifts a brow, watching as his agent slowly unfurls from atop him, and works open his belt. Q sighs, feigning a disinterest that does not carry to the interest in his eyes, nor at all to his hand that seeks between his legs to rub himself as he watches.

Bond kneels with his legs spread before his quartermaster, taking his time to tug up the sweater over his head and toss it aside, undoing the buttons from the bottom up and shrugging his shirt off with a hum.

His belt clicks softly where it remains open against his thighs. He works open his pants before kneeling up higher, eyes on the younger man before him, languidly rubbing between his legs as he watches. It is inelegant, but his trousers, then his pants come off and leave Bond bare, half hard before Q.

He shifts back, hands down so he moves on all fours, and lays himself out tempting beside Q, arms folded beneath his head as he regards the man next to him.

Lithe and lanky, Q arches to his shoulders, a single undulation rocking up to his hips and pushing his cock against his hand with a moan. For long minutes, he watches Bond beside him, bare and beautiful and obedient. What mercurial light makes it through the windows spills liquid luminous across his skin, trickling to the shadowed hollow at the small of his back before glowing bright across his bottom. Bond’s eyes draw up in a narrow smile as Q works open his trousers and writhes out of them, sinuous and slow.

So bare, he takes himself in hand again and pulls languid on his stiffening cock. The other hand is offered to Bond, two fingers tugging down his bottom lip and splaying when he takes them into his mouth.

“Suck,” Q tells him, and the sensation when he does so nearly undoes his quartermaster.

The sensation is delightful, and the view even more so. Bond’s head rests just on the level at which Q strokes himself, languid and long, deliberate and with a turn of his wrist at the tip to peel free a lovely pale drop of precome. He sucks and he watches, lifting his eyes when Q makes another of those sweet, soft sounds of pleasure again and bites his lip.

Bond knows the taste of that lip, knows the heat of it when it’s been pressed between white teeth for pleasure. He knows how Q likes it to be tugged, how he parts them on moans and presses them together on groans.

He can feel himself grow harder, shifts to rub against the sheets and smiles around Q’s fingers when the man tilts his head and raises an eyebrow. Not a word spoken. No words needed. Obediently, Bond lays back in bed and stays still, opening his mouth with a soft click of wet lips against skin, encouraging Q to push them deeper should he wish.

He does. He really, really does. Fingers spread wide enough to reach each side of James’ cheeks, and press together again to stroke against his curling tongue. Further back, to where the texture grows almost rough. Further, until his thumb abuts to James’ chin and his knuckles press to his lip.

Twisting his wrist as he slowly fists his cock, Q pulls his fingers back to watch Bond’s lips follow the movement. Inward again, to watch them bend. He turns them and finds the older man’s tongue twists in response, cheeks hollowing in suckling pulses of pressure that tug Q’s entire body to rapt attention, cock stiff and senses sharply focused on this. Only this. Every noisy wet sound, every pull, every glint of spit glistening on his fingers, the warmth of Bond’s mouth around him.

Q doesn’t believe in luck, but damn if James Bond doesn’t make a bloody good case for it.

“Stop,” he says, and Bond’s mouth slackens. A thread pulls long and snaps between them as Q takes his fingers away, to slip them instead between Bond’s legs, his own knees spreading as he sinks lower to the bed.

With a groan, James’ eyes flutter closed and he arches his back to lift his hips. He doesn’t get on his knees, he doesn’t even rock into the incredible slick stroking of Q’s hand, he closes his eyes and holds himself up, stomach tight and thighs tense, and allows himself to be touched for Q’s pleasure, at his pace, at his choice.

That, too, sends shivers up his spine.

He is doing this for Q. Because Q asked him, and because Bond asked to be told.

“Should I spread my legs?” He mumbles, laughing when he is denied. He lifts his eyes and watches Q over the soft curve of his arm where it rests to the bed. “Shall I use my mouth for something larger than your fingers?”

Q can’t stop his grin in time, sudden and sweetly shy as he ducks his head to try to hide it. In truth, he could be utterly ruthless in this - he’s not known for having a particularly cuddly demeanor, and it wouldn’t be the first time another man recognized his determination and desired to be commanded by him. He could do that. He could.

But the softness around James’ eyes is more desirable by far; the subtle trembling responses of his body is dizzying. Q meant it when he said that gentleness, especially when he’s being a brat, will always win him over, and to see his agent so acquiescing is a pleasure beyond any other. He circles Bond’s opening, shivering when the muscle responds much as the circle of Bond’s mouth had, yielding pressure and firm tension.

When he nods, he bites his lip and slows his stroking, and inches closer on his knees for them to fit together.

With a low groan of pleasure, Bond sets his hands to the bed to balance himself, leans forward to nuzzle against Q’s thigh, breathing in the intoxicating muskiness of him before he parts his lips to suck against the side of his cock. Slowly he worships the hot skin, sucks in the bitter-salty taste of precome streaked smooth along the length. Inch by inch he gets closer to the head, inch by inch, Q’s fingers press more and more against his ass.

One penetrates.

Bond takes Q into his mouth with a moan and splays his tongue against the thick vein.

“Eyes,” Q whispers, and James obediently opens them, raises them.

The effect is immediate. A shudder rocks Q to his knees and plunges his cock deep past Bond’s lips. He twists his finger deeper inside his agent, the second pressing just enough to breach and feel James’ moan resonate through his body. His free hand rests against James’ cheek, the muscles of his jaw pulled taut to take Q into his mouth.

And their gaze, their gaze doesn’t waver, but for moments when eyes flutter shut, only to open again.

Corkscrewing his fingers together, Q works them further into Bond, spiraling back out again to feel his tightness grasp and clench, in again to feel it yield. He stretches them wide and curls them, lips parted when Bond groans low, and takes Q’s cock to the hilt.

Bond’s fingers curl into the sheets as Q’s curl within him, over and over like a cat kneading in pleasure. And it feels good. It feels so damn good.

He has allowed it before, to have people control him, to get their kicks at being powerful over an agent, over a man who exudes masculinity, who shouldn’t want to, need to, be able to bend. He has allowed it. Rarely has it had such an effect on him. Some men overplay the dominance, others make it comical. As much as James enjoys bending over for another man they are few and far between who can make him feel truly submissive.

He raises himself a little higher, head bending lower, muscles bunching in his shoulders as he shifts, and slowly, eyes still on his quartermaster for permission, he starts to rock back into the hands that touch him. Q doesn’t stop him, though he raises a brow. Instead, he bends his fingers just enough to find the firm nub beneath and press. Every time Bond rocks against his hand, it eases; every time he tilts away, a flood of pleasure drowns his breath to become a moan.

“Well done, 007.”

The dry humor that would have been yielded had Bond had the chance to speak goes unheard, instead a small sound, a deeper suck, eyes closing in supplication are his answer. He feels good. He feels useful and beautiful and wanted. He keeps fucking himself back against Q’s fingers as he works his quartermaster closer and closer to completion.

He knows he’s close when he trembles. He knows he’s close when he makes that soft sound of pleasure and brings his free hand down to cup his balls. With a low moan, deliberately hummed when he takes Q to the back of his throat, Bond pulls back, watching Q curse and shiver, feeling - in retribution - his fingers curl harder against his prostate as he bends.

It always happens far too quickly. Q thought once it was just the folly of youth but after a certain age, his sensitivity became an embarrassment. Quick to hardness and quicker to come, his pleasure no less diminished for it but worried, always, to disappoint a partner. When he’s taking rather than giving, it’s less a concern, but here, now, he fights against the damn near agonizing pleasure snaring tight in the pit of his belly and tugs his balls softly to hold himself back.

A thread of spit that joins the head of his cock to Bond’s lips nearly ruins him.

“You have to stop,” Q laughs, head bowed and cheeks bright, hair spiraling wild outward from sleep and sex. “If you want me to have any hope of pinning you to the mattress -”

With a deliberately filthy slurp, James pulls back and watches Q instead, slinking up on all fours before him, bending forward to nuzzle the damp crevice of his thigh.

“Do you have any bloody idea how perfect you are?” He murmurs, grinning when Q squeezes his fingers around the base of his cock that twitches with every puff of air and every word his agent purrs to him. “Any bloody idea how hot it is that I can make you so damn hard so damn quickly?”

He licks a long stripe over the ‘v’ of Q’s hips and arches his back harder, licks his lips and leans in again.

“Do forgive this minor disobedience, will you?” He whispers, parting his lips to take Q deep again, unrelenting even when slender fingers curl tight in his hair.

“Double- _oh God_ ,” groans Q, unable to do more than bury his cock past Bond’s lips, unable to do more than clutch trembling to the back of his neck. His fingers are still inside him but stretch and splay wide, unable to do more as he’s dizzied with pleasure and the strong, hard, noisy sucking of his agent between his legs.

He bucks, despite himself; his body jolts pleasure from hips to shoulders to head thrown back with a long, high moan. Throat clicking, Q’s brows knit, and when his climax rips free he shuts his eyes to stop the room from spinning.

Bond swallows, relishing in the taste and texture, the heat of it all, the intimacy of such an act, no matter how many times he has done this, how many times they have done this together. He is painfully hard, a hand snaking between his legs to stroke as he looks up the length of Q’s body, the thin sheen of sweat reflecting what few lights penetrate the windows.

He pulls back with a groan, murmurs something in French that sounds like silk and feels like caramel, and kisses hot and wet against Q’s stomach. Q presses his shaking hand to Bond’s jaw and frees the other from inside him, ignoring the noisy protest that squeezes between their mouths. He licks himself from Bond’s tongue, lips twisting damp together as he pushes Bond to his back and slips atop him.

Their bodies shove together, Q’s cock softening slowly, smearing slick against Bond’s that only stiffens harder in response. He wishes he didn’t always finish so soon, he wishes he had his agent’s admittedly remarkable staying power. He wishes he could be inside him but wagers that he still can, in some way.

And so he will.

“I love you,” Q whispers, tracing his tongue against James’ lower lip and sucking his own between his teeth to savor it. “Disobedient bastard.”

And with that stiff chiding, he works his way down, sucking a mark against Bond’s throat, his collarbone. Another above his heart and lower still. Slender hands hold strong thighs apart as Q tosses his hair from his face and lifts his eyes, grinning.

Bond laughs, splays his toes and relaxes them again, watching Q from between his legs. He knows he will be enduring the most beautiful pleasure-pain for as long as Q sees fit to give it to him. He grins at the chastisement, brings a hand to his hair to tug it back from his forehead and narrows his eyes in challenge.

In the aftermath of orgasm, Q is most often prone to excessive cuddling, kiss-seeking, and dozing off in a curled-up ball beneath his partner’s limbs. He wants to feel worshipped, protected, adored, cherished despite his general lack of performance. A very selfish part of him whispers that he could do so now, leave Bond unattended as punishment, and he knows that James would grumble and acquiesce.

But it’s always better when they’re both spent, sticky and sweaty, lax and lazy. Better they both lay heavy against the other and seek clumsy, numb kisses from the other who brought them to such pinnacles of pleasure.

Q ducks his head, and licks a hot stripe against the bottom of Bond’s cock. Another, the tip of his tongue only, follows the pulsing vein that runs thick along it, up to the scarlet head of his length, peeking slick and shining from his foreskin. Q laps the precome from its slit, tongue pressing against until Bond curls his hands to fists and releases them with a groan.

“Is this my reprimand, then?” He pants quietly. “To hold - hold - _God_.”

“Yes,” Q tells him, but he sets no demands on how long for, on whether this is a restriction of his own making or Bond’s. The command feels good against his lips, tastes sweeter against his tongue, but when he takes his agent into his mouth for a quick suck, the sounds are far, far better.

They can play at this later. They can get good at it.

But for now, lazy sucking and wet licks, teasing kisses to Bond’s ass and back up again to feel him twitch and tremble, say Q’s title over and over in breathless sweet submission.

He wonders, then, if he should just tell the man his name.

Lord, how it would sound purred against him.

It has been years since he has heard it whispered with adulation and love. Years.

Perhaps never at all - certainly never like this.

He distracts himself from foolish thoughts by taking James’ balls into his mouth and rolling them softly against his tongue, letting his eyes close to feel him tremble, to feel him respond. Rivets of release begin to stiffen him, muscles rising and vanishing across his belly, thighs tightening against Q’s cheeks. He curls his tongue around velvety skin, wrinkles gathering as he licks, vanishing as Bond tenses again, tugging closer to release.

He releases them with a noisy pop and plants his hands against Bond’s knees, hoisting his legs higher to stroke his tongue against his opening. Still warm from stretching around Q’s fingers, his tongue slips easily inside, lips bent against hot skin. He sucks here too, the rush of his own blood in his ears and the sound of the bed rocking beneath them still not enough to deafen him to the hitched, gasping groans of the man above him.

Wet kisses mark his path upward again, dipping over Bond’s cock until it brushes the back of his throat, until spit pools thick from Q’s lips and he continues. Up, over the vee of his hips and up, over the plane of his stomach and up, past peaked nipples to the hollow of his throat and his mouth, their kiss plunging deep. Q’s skinny legs shift one and then the other to straddle him, and without allowing their lips to part from the other, Q reaches back to guide himself onto James’ cock.

Bond rocks up, careful to hold his hands against narrow hips so Q doesn’t get hurt but delighting in the sensation of the tightness of him. He is so slender, so beautiful and lithe. He is an incredible lover. They break their kiss to breathe, Q ducked down against James’ chest, the agent’s chin against his head. They make few sounds beyond panted breaths and low hums and grunts. It’s a slow stretch but a deliberate one, and when Q groans low and needy, and sits up, Bond just watches him in utter awe.

“How,” he murmurs, “how in all bloody hell could someone let you go?”

Q breathes a laugh and shakes his head, hands spanning over Bond’s belly as he shifts his hips in a slow circle to ease aching muscles. “The fact I came ten minutes ago?”

“Perfect,” Bond says. He reaches to grasp Q by the back of his neck and bend him low, their brows pressed together as he thrusts gently upward. “You’re bloody perfect.”

Q’s moan is lost between their clumsy kiss, rising between their lips before another kiss twines their mouths together. He hardly has to move at all to pull Bond’s body tight with his own, languidly curving his back, rocking his hips to stroke James’ length inside of him. Long lashes lift and their eyes meet; their gaze holds.

“We are,” he whispers. “Together.”

James groans, low and soft, and wraps his arms up beneath Q’s shoulders, splaying in his hair, against his back, rocking slowly but not sharply up against him. Years ago when he had first started this, when he had gone to Paris, when he had woken sore and limped to the bathroom and grinned at himself in the mirror and wondered if anyone would guess that he was no longer the boy who had woken up as disheveled the morning before, he had wondered if there really was such a thing as making love, or if it was a phrase scoffed at by boys and girls alike.

A stereotype. Something stupid and unachievable. 

But this, as he takes a breath and tastes Q’s sweetness against it as the other exhales, this is perhaps what it feels like.

His only regret in all of this, in the risks they’re taking to life and livelihood, in the attachment building so sudden and irreversible between them, is that he isn’t kissing Q when he comes. It shudders from him with a groan, a sudden tensing to press deep into the dark, welcoming heat of his lover’s body. Head pressed to Q’s chest, he feels his quartermaster’s heart pulsing swift against his cheek, and slender fingers curling through his hair spill a shiver down his spine.

He remedies his regret as soon as he’s caught breath enough to do so. Q’s lips sweep softly against his own, bearing him back to the bed, a gentle pulse of muscles down the younger man’s body milking James into aftershocks of pleasure.

It feels so good, both near-dizzy with the pleasure of it all. They will be a mess in the morning when they finally get up to shower - there is no way in hell either will move to do it now. Q will limp, and Bond will grin, watching as he lays splayed on his stomach and the sun comes up cool beyond the windows. They will share breakfast, make a second course for their dinner to enjoy together that evening.

This is a life. This is the life they both want and neither had hoped to ever have.

A hum and a kiss, and Bond turns Q’s face gently away as he strokes his hair. He can feel the softness of his lover turn to warm clinging almost immediately. He pulls free and Q curls into a ball and nuzzles him as intensely as either of his cats do, and Bond can do little more than laugh.

“Look at you,” he whispers. “Menace.”

Q smiles, and when he does, cheeks rosy and lashes laying long against them, nose wrinkled just a little, he looks his age. Younger, even, boyish and serene in their shared sins, blissful with the constant rediscovery of what their bodies can do. He lifts his chin and nuzzles against Bond’s jaw, his chin, seeking a soft kiss before pulling tighter against him.

“It’s your fault,” Q murmurs, as he wraps an arm around James’ waist and squeezes a leg between his. He hums happily when his agent kisses his hair, and rests his cheek against his head. “I was dignified once. Briefly. Very briefly, before you came along.”

“You were a boy with spots talking about your pajamas.”

“Perhaps,” Q grins. “What does that say about you?”

Bond laughs again, and squeezes his quartermaster closer. “That there’s no man more fortunate in all of England.”


	11. Reverse Proxy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"You're lovely when you pout," Bond murmurs, leaning near enough to draw his nose against Q's temple._
> 
> _"I'm not pouting."_
> 
> _"But you are lovely."_

“No. No thank you.”

And that’s that, as far as Q is concerned. He said no. He said it twice, in fact, and was even mostly polite about it, despite having muffled it through his gloved fingers. Even Bond’s hands against his arms do little to ease his tension, shoulders ratcheting higher.

“It’s an hour. Sixty-minutes, Q. You can manage this.”

“I didn’t know this was what you’d planned when you told me to feed the cats extra, 007, I thought you were just being kind to them,” Q exclaims, leveling the nearby pilot with a glare before turning away to press both hands to his mouth instead. He can feel his breath through his gloves, puffing a little too short, a little too quickly. At least it’s there at all - going by his lungs and the vertigo already dropping the earth from beneath his feet, he’d have sworn he couldn’t breathe at all.

He shivers when Bond rubs his back and lifts a hand to briefly dismiss the MI6 agent. The man takes a few steps closer to the propeller plane and lights a cigarette. Bond sighs.

“You said you wanted to see it.”

“I’ll take the train.”

“It’s six hours just to get there.”

Q makes a high, tight noise from deep in his throat and drops his hands to his sides, clenching them to fists as he regards the plane. “I really, really hate you right now,” he whispers, before he stomps towards it.

The cigarette is tossed uncaring to the tarmac and Bond just sighs, hoisting their heavy shared bag higher up his shoulder. Perhaps it hadn't been a good surprise. Perhaps he should have found a time they could take the train together. Then hire a car. Then -

“Are you coming?”

Q glares at him before tromping up the stairs and into the little plane. Bond can't help but smile. It is rather endearing, watching Q face his genuine distaste for planes simply because James had promised him once that they could visit whatever remained of his old childhood home in the moors. At least, that’s what he told him.

He mounts the stairs and smiles at the flight assistant as he follows his grumpy lover.

Already Q is so tense that it looks nearly painful. Heels hooked together and legs jiggling, belt across his chest, his static-grey tweed coat bunches awkwardly under folded arms. Bond tries not to smile as he settles beside his little engineer, rather than across from him, and stows their bag beneath his chair. The plane, though small, is hardly uncomfortable, outfitted for use by MI6. The seats are creamy, soft leather, polished wood around the windows, and plush, clean carpeting beneath their feet.

"You're lovely when you pout," Bond murmurs, leaning near enough to draw his nose against Q's temple.

"I'm not pouting."

"But you are lovely."

"I'm bracing," Q tells him, "for a fiery death in the Midlands, or at least becoming very sick over them. Don't know why we thought it'd be wise to put carpet in here. Posh bloody agents mucking about.”

"And all of us grateful for those creature comforts," Bond answers, smile widening despite Q's eminent displeasure. "Should I remind you of my intimacy with danger? How many times I've found myself hanging off the skids of a helicopter in mid-flight, or trying to land a prop plane with no props left. Or the occasions in which I've been airborne in something that isn't a plane at all -"

"Please stop," Q whispers, turning a beseeching gaze to him.

"All I meant was that I know danger, darling, and this is is far from it," Bond says, framing Q's pale cheek with his palm. "Hell, you built the bloody thing."

The plane whirrs to life and Q nearly swallows his tongue. Without thinking, he unfolds an arm - the other firmly in place to keep his stomach from jumping out - and grasps Bond's hand hard. Their fingers slot together, and Bond brings Q's knuckles to his lips.

"This had better bloody be worth it," Q mutters.

"You’d be surprised," says Bond.

The take-off is smooth, though the way Q tenses one would think it turned over several times before it hit cruising altitude. Even then, Bond’s hand remains firmly clasped, tips of his fingers going numb from the force of it. He does not tell Q to let go, and he does not let go of him.

It takes several moments for Bond to realize that Q is humming, eyes fixed on the middle distance, lips pressed firmly together and voice carrying barely heard over the whir of the engines, but it is without a doubt a tune. What’s remarkable is that it is also _in_ tune, whatever it is. No wrong squeaking note out of place, no strange ululation of sound where there should be a smooth stretch.

James bends to set his chin against Q’s shoulder and nuzzles his cheek, listening.

He daren't close his eyes. He hardly even blinks. It all strikes him as suddenly absurd, as if watching the plane has anything to do with keeping it in the air - as if holding Bond's hand will help when it crashes. Perhaps fear really is the basis of faith, a last grasping for control when one's fragile humanity is overwhelmed by outside forces.

How very disappointing it is to find himself so human after all.

The cool tip of Bond's nose against his cheek draws Q's attention away from his deep-seated resentment towards himself, and when he looks to him, the vibrations in his throat quiet. Color warms his pallid cheeks.

"I didn't know you sing," Bond smiles.

"I don’t know that wavering through 'Abide With Me' counts as singing," Q snorts. "More like a desperate attempt to curry favor with any deity who'll hear it and save us being smashed to bits." He hazards a look out the window and swallows hard, slumping into his seat.

James makes a soft sound and leans past Q to slide the window shade down and cover the view of the clouds beyond. He rests his hand on Q’s thigh when he’s done, stroking there, warming skin that feels cold from fear beneath his trousers.

“I’ll have you singing lullabies to me soon,” he says, and Q snorts again, though the sound carries with it a higher whimper that speaks to the fear beneath the facade of indifference. Bond shifts just enough to lift his chin and kiss Q’s cheek, a lingering and warm thing, before nuzzling there. Gently, he tugs his leg to turn him, smiles up at the wide-eyed and pale quartermaster when he turns his head as well.

“Tell me something.”

“You know, the rate of plane crashes, even on domestic flights is -”

“Not what I want you thinking about,” James replies calmly. “Tell me something.”

Q is turned a little more, following his agent's insistence and allowing himself to turn. The seats are spacious, with more than enough room for Q to rest his legs over Bond's lap, his back against the blasted window. He loosens the safety belt, but does not remove it, settling with his arms crossed and watching as Bond unties the laces on his sneakers.

His socks today are alternating stripes of blue, and by that, Bond knows that it's only Thursday, with a week and a half left of their holiday together.

After a moment of thought, and anxiously chewing his bottom lip, Q says, "I sang in the church choir when I was young. My mother is more religious than most, and it made her so happy to see me up there that I went along with it. It was good for me to learn how to be in front of people. Hardly enough to counteract the shock of slowly discovering she’d raised a queer, faithless computer geek, though."

James laughs, setting his hands to Q’s feet to massage, careful to avoid the more ticklish spots as he does.

“Parents are funny that way,” he says. His own had been distant but never uncaring. Traveling, working, but always invested in their son’s education, always invested in his development. His father had not taught him how to shoot but he had been there to help him shoot better. His mother had not been there to watch him win the speech contest at school but she had been the one to teach him French. He wonders what their response would have been had he brought home a male partner one day.

He smiles at the thought.

“I bet she is still very proud of you being a financier,” James replies, grinning when Q snorts again, eyes up to the ceiling then to the side, towards the pilot’s door. James’ hands move up to caress Q’s calf, gently massaging there as well to soothe him.

"Thankfully it's a dull enough thing that there's not too many questions," Q smiles, tilting his head to rest it against the seat. "I've only to parrot off a few things before I earn my 'that's nice, dear, are you seeing anyone?' You know me, though," he says. "A hopeless workaholic, no time at all for anything like that."

He lifts his feet just enough to slip them between Bond's legs, and under his thigh. His agent's hand warms his calf, down the shin again, stroking away the lingering tremors. The hidden cameras and microphones, ubiquitous in all areas MI6, are undoubtedly rolling. Someone back in HQ is surely having a laugh. Q doesn't let the thought move him from the necessary comfort that James offers him.

It's hardly secret anyway, considering the last time they were there, Bond carried him out over his shoulder.

"Your turn," Q says with a small smile, unfolding an arm to touch his fingertips to Bond's scruffy cheek. "Distract me, 007."

James turns into the touch, doesn’t stop his fingers moving against his lover’s leg. Already Q is calmer - tense, certainly, but no longer in danger of a premature heart attack from his own panic. He wonders what he can say. Often, they talk and say nothing at all, and that is enough, it is good and comfortable.

“We had a cat, back when my parents were around,” he says, smiling when the admission earns a laugh from the quartermaster.

“A tom?”

“No, a bitch.”

“007, that’s not -”

Bond’s look, narrowed eyes and a crooked smile, is enough for Q to quiet with a sigh. He raises his eyebrow in expectation of further explanation. 

“She and I held a cold war in that house. I think we both knew the other was too stubborn to give up, and we each were too proud to cede. She singlehandedly educated me in my love of feline kind, I’m afraid.”

"Letting one bad relationship color the rest? Bad form," Q grins.

"When it's that miserable, one cannot help but be changed by it, I'm afraid. She used to piss on my bed."

Q laughs, nose wrinkling. He's still pale, circles already colored dark beneath his eyes. Normally punctuating his words with gestures, he now sits very still, but to bring up his other hand to his mouth to steady himself again.

"It wasn't as though she had nowhere to go. She had her bin -"

"Litter box."

"- her bin," Bond says anyway. "We let her out to go wherever she pleased. It was deliberate."

"An affront."

"An assault, really."

Q lets his fingers drift down Bond's arm to his elbow, and trail back up again. "What was her name?"

“Mackenzie,” he replies, eyes up to watch his quartermaster smile. It is the truth, the cat had been a menace and James had very much disliked her; there had been a cold war. He will never admit to Q that he misses that beast often, thinks about her sometimes when the bed in his apartment feels too cool and empty.

Silly creature.

The plane jolts, not hard, but enough to unsettle a sound from Q and have him immediately curl into a ball as though it would help the impact he is inevitably imagining. Bond sighs, and with a shift, deliberately drags his quartermaster into his lap, undoing his safety belt and holding him close.

“You’re like a bloody hedgehog, you know that?”

He runs a hand against Q’s back, slow and steady to soothe his tremors from him. Q only feels that they’re there, as opposed to a rigid tension, when Bond’s hand passes over the twitching muscles. Shameful. Bloody shameful.

Nearly thirty and needing to be coddled like a child.

He’s unable to keep that stoic disdain for himself for longer than a moment, however, when another little bump sinks his arms around Bond’s throat, and Q hums a long, dismayed sound against his throat.

“I’m going to be sick.”

“Not on me, you’re not. Didn’t you build something for that?”

“A loo that I could not possibly reach right now,” Q murmurs. The plane settles but he remains close, head swimming and his mouth tasting of tinfoil. “This is better,” he finally says. “This way when it goes down, you’ll soften my impact.”

“People have asked me lately where I got my positive attitude from. They’ve noticed it's increased. I suppose now I know.”

“Git.”

James snorts and turns his head against trembling warm curls. The flight into Europe always has tremors. Something to do with changes in wind patterns over the bloody ocean. At least Bond knew he could rely on Q not knowing that - terrified of flight as he is.

He would have seen the flight path to Scotland. He would not have looked for Paris.

They speak little more, but remain close. It is a very brief flight, all things considered, but to Q it’s a lifetime flashed before his eyes over and over again. The descent pulls them closer still. Q only loosens his grip enough to remove his scarf from the seat beside the one they share, and toss it over the armrest of the chairs facing them.

“They’ve enough footage to snicker about for weeks already,” he says. Q lifts his bleary gaze to Bond and straightens his rumpled collar, crushed beneath fearful affection, and with a finger hooked against it, he rests their lips together in a soft kiss. Bond strokes his hair back and when their mouths part, they touch their brows together.

“I thought you were angry with me.”

“One final kiss before we’re smeared across the Scottish countryside.”

“Going to have to be quite a smear, I think.”

The smirk in his tone, scarcely hidden on his lips, brings Q to immediate and narrow-eyed attention. His fingers curl conveniently in Bond’s tie as the wheels drop for landing. “What do you mean by that, 007?”

“That it’s a bloody long way from France to Scotland.”

Q’s lips part and his eyes widen. Bond could swear he smells burning from the circuits sparking connection, overwhelmed all at once, but just as quickly as he fixes everything, Q blinks back to his factory state.

“France.”

“That’s where Paris is, yes.”

“I’m not allowed to leave the country,” Q tells him, laughing but not without a dire undercurrent to it. “I haven’t got a passport, accurate identification, anything. They won’t give them to me because I’d be tracked as soon as I came near security, James -”

“Q.”

“What did you do?”

“I brought you to Paris on a private plane under the security cover of an MI6 personal mission. That will be logged into their records, our names will not.”

Q’s breath finally returns to him, hitching only as the wheels smoothly contact ground, and as he sighs, he laughs. As he laughs, he kisses his agent, ferociously, first his cheek and then seeking his lips with clumsy, wild enthusiasm. They survived the flight. They didn’t drown in the Channel, as Q would have imagined had he known. They’re in France, together, for an actual holiday.

“I never imagined I’d be so happy to be kidnapped,” Q murmurs.

“Just for a night, if you don’t care for it,” answers Bond, nuzzling a sigh against Q’s cheek as his quartermaster squirms in pleasure. “A little longer if you can convince Moneypenny to stop by and see the cats. I know you’ve got your bloody computer with you so you can unlock the house.”

“She needn’t be bothered - it’s all automated.”

Bond hums. “Automated?”

“Of course,” Q smiles, still clinging to James as the plane taxis and slows. “I could hardly leave my cats’ well-being to chance when I work for MI6. Half the time I don’t get home until dawn. They’d starve.”

His agent licks his lips and allows a smile to spread on his face as Q’s eyes narrow.

“What?”

“Never again,” Bond murmurs, “will I accept an excuse of ‘I need to feed the cats’ when I want you to stay the night in London.”

Q doesn’t argue the declaration. It has always been that - beyond his resounding affection for the creatures, it’s a convenient reason to return to his own home and sleep in his own bed. These days, though, he finds Bond’s just as welcoming, and though they’re across the water from it now, the thought tugs his smile wide and shameless.

“This is why they don’t authorize me to leave,” he grins. “I’ve already blown my cover.”

“Wait until we’re at the hotel, Q, and I’ll blow your -”

Bond’s threat is cut short but the sound of the door unlatching. Q removes himself from Bond’s lap by way of the floor, tumbling to hands and knees on the soft carpet that he suddenly appreciates having included. He grasps his scarf from across the hidden camera and discretely makes a rude gesture to whomever is watching, before rising on unsteady legs as the door hisses open.

James follows him much more gracefully, their bag in tow.

The day is hardly better than one in London would be. Dreary with a threat of rain but no smell of ozone to confirm it. The airport is a small one, private planes and the few people manning them milling around outside. Their own plane will remain here until the following day before taking them back; it is authorized on French soil.

A car waits and Bond waves it off. They’ll take a cab. Enough eyes have been on them already.

Q keeps close to him, closer than he’d dare in London. He doesn’t ask questions, but he watches the wave with interest, and the car as it departs. At Bond’s side, he is held rapt by the impossible opportunity to be near his agent in his element. His strides are longer, his chin a little higher. He carries himself as if the airport - indeed, the city, country, and perhaps world itself - is his own.

It is a far lovelier view to be beside him than it is watching through a pinhole camera from thousands of kilometers away.

Q wraps his scarf around his throat again, but it does little to hide his blush as Bond holds the cab door for him to slide in first. His eyes are enormous behind his lenses, hair tousled by the wind as they walked across the runway. And when he seeks with splayed fingers across the seat between them, Bond hasn’t the willpower to resist, gathering his little engineer’s slender fingers beneath his own.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” Q asks, chewing the side of his thumb and leaning towards the window to watch the city outside.

“Would you recognize the name if I did?”

“No,” grins Q. “Absolutely not.”

“Good,” James smiles. “Then enjoy the city.”

He murmurs something to the driver and the main replies with a smile, taking the quickest road from the airport and out into the city proper.

The roads are elegantly lined with trees, evenly spaced, well cared for. After a while, Q finds that he looks up over the roofs of the cars, over the street signs and through the windows of passing tourist buses, not only to catch a glimpse of Paris properly, but to avoid looking at the terrible driving.

At the Place Charles de Gaulle, Q closes his eyes altogether and James laughs, squeezing his hand.

“How?”

“I suppose if you’d grown up here driving like this would hardly be problematic.”

“This is worse than the flight,” Q complains, and James brings his hand to his lips to kiss.

“Nearly there,” he murmurs.

Q peeks now and then to the city whirling by, taking short little breaths of delight when they pass a building that pleases him, a monument, a sidewalk cafe. It isn’t as though London doesn’t have those things in equal quantity, but he knows bloody London and this is _Paris_. A wild thought strikes him that, perhaps, they should see Rio together. Hawaii. Morocco. His stomach turns at the thought of those flights and at the turn of the cab, wheeling sharp around a corner.

“Oh Christ,” he mutters, pressing the back of his free hand to his mouth. A sharp stop frees it again as he thrusts it against the driver’s seat before him to stop from colliding. Q doesn’t bother to reach for his pocket, instead warming to a smile as Bond has his out already. He does take the bag though, slinging it over his shoulder as he exits the car.

The building is unassuming. Small, even. It looks like every other on the block, white plaster and little windowboxes, to a balconied penthouse. The only difference is the red lights in front, and as Q turns in a slow circle to take in the narrow street, he can’t resist remarking, “Not quite the Savoy, is it?”

James smiles, watching the quartermaster take in the streets around him.

“No,” he replies. “Not quite.”

London and Paris feel different, though the cities are often compared. There is a different feeling in the air. Paris, to James, has a perpetual feeling of autumn. The light always falls a certain way, even in summer. There is something in the air that speaks of changes and surprises. He supposes it has a lot to do with how he first experienced the city, but he hardly thinks himself biased for it.

Most people consider it the city of love.

It certainly has its charms.

“Come on,” he smiles, tilting his head towards the door. “Might as well check in before we explore.”

Q ducks his head and hitches their bag higher, following James in.

“La Maison Souquet,” Bond tells him.

Not quite the Savoy, indeed.

It is as dizzying as the flight had been, but tangles Q’s belly in a whole different way. Lush crimson velvet covers plush couches. Fin de siecle gold tangles with oriental jade, almost Rococco in its ostentatious decor, glittering low lights and beaded lampshades, rounded doorways and black polished marble. Mirrors reflect back a seemingly endless parlor and as Bond goes to check them in, Q can do little more than turn in a slow circle and take it all in.

“Have you brought me to a brothel?” He asks, laughing into his hand.

“It was once,” Bond responds, watching his quartermaster a moment before signing one of countless assumed names.

“How marvelous,” Q whispers.

“And you’re only in the lobby.”

Q’s grin says enough.

Bond charms the man at the desk until the other is laughing, directing them with a gentle gesture and bright eyes to the stairs or elevator - their choice - to take them to their room.

They take the stairs.

The place is lavish in the most beautifully exaggerated way. There is something secret about it, with the heavy drapery and endless mirrors. There is something that speaks of hidden corners and unspoken secrets. Softness. Sweetness. Over-burned incense and recycled breath.

Q shivers.

They continue up the stairs.

“I found this place entirely by accident,” Bond says, grinning when Q gives him a look. “Truly. My usual hotel had lost my reservation and I needed to sleep somewhere before I fell and my bed became the nearest bench - frowned upon here, just so you know. It would not have gone over well to end up in a cell overnight for sleeping on the sidewalk. And so I came here. Thought as little of it as you did.”

There is relief in Q’s laugh - relief for not being the only one so suddenly charmed by this place, relief for Bond’s discreet disclosure veiled between words that when he was here before, he came alone. It seems a petty thing to care about; for as deep as Q’s insecurities run he doesn’t doubt the truth of his agent’s fondness for him. But it’s a deeper breath that fills him all the same to know that this is a private place for James. A private place to which he has brought Q, only.

He snares James’ fingers in his own as they transcend the winding stairs, laid thick with scarlet carpet.

The dark shadows and luminous flashes of gold and silver intoxicate; the history of this place moreso for Q’s knowing it now. He feels, as he most often does not, desirable. Wanted. Even a little sexy, and the hooded gaze he receives as Bond opens their room for them does little to sway Q from the feeling.

Down a small hallway, the room opens up into spiralling floral-patterned wallpaper, red and black throughout. A chaise lounge curves tempting from the sitting room. The bed is wide and glacial white in its linens, offset by rich ebony wood throughout.

He lets their bag slip from his shoulder and steps to the window, slipping back the curtain to reveal the city beyond. In this, Bond has been entirely effective in accomplishing what he long ago declared as his intention. He has finally brought Q to shutting up, and left him speechless.

James watches him with a smile, closes and locks the door for habit, not to imply they spend the day indoors, and lets Q take in the city James had fallen in love with, and had found someone to fall in love with within it.

Now he watches this man, his quartermaster, and so, so much more than that, and quietly clicks his keys to the small table in the hall. He doesn’t talk - he lets the surprise and wonder of the moment hang between them like a hum of a plucked string. It is beautiful. He is beautiful.

Coming up close enough to set his chin atop Q’s shoulder, James regards the city beyond the glass as though through Q’s eyes, as he has so often seen cities and worlds foreign through Bond’s. He feels in his own chest how soft Q’s breath has become. He feels in his own heart the racing of a world seen for the first time for himself.

Q’s lips part with a click, but he hasn’t the words to form on them. He has in so many ways lived a life of solitude, almost monastic in his existence. First it was study that isolated him, and the dawning awareness of his own sensuality. And when the latter was resolved as invariable, the former still took precedent, cutting short any lasting bonds he may have perhaps formed. His life’s calling found him, rather than him finding it, and in the years following his summonses he has dedicated his heart to his work, to his country, and finally to the agent in his keeping.

He never expected to find his heart so gently held as this.

“Thank you,” he says, shivering breathless at the sudden sensation of James’ arm around his waist. “For everything.”

“You’ve hardly seen anything yet,” James murmurs. He kisses the side of Q’s face regardless, accepting the sweet words, pleased that he could bring his quartermaster to speechlessness, pleased that he could delight and enchant him this way. In truth, should Q wish for it, James would be happy to spend their time here. Q is a quiet person with a quiet life and quiet preferences. A change of locale would hardly change that.

Yet it is Q who turns, grinning like a child, and presses close to Bond.

“Let's go.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere,” Q laughs. “Show me Paris. Show me your Paris.”

“It is similar to my London.”

“Then show me the Paris that young James Bond knew. Show me the Paris where he met Armand.”

James smiles, lazy and warm. He brings up a hand to stroke Q’s hair from his face, and rests it against his cheek for the younger man to nuzzle against.

“Seedy bars and quiet jazz clubs,” James warns him. “Old streets and cheap markets. Deliberately forgotten umbrellas for an incoming rainshower…”

"All of it," Q tells him, fingers spanning down his chest and up again to wrap around his neck. "I am in your keeping this time, 007, rather than you in mine."

They kiss softly, lips sweeping together before a sigh parts them. And then, together, they go.


	12. Data Compression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"And when my need to be spoiled increases?" Q asks, brow lifting as his eyes narrow in a smile._
> 
> _"All the more opportunity to meet your exacting standards," Bond says, gathering Q's fingers from where they rest on the worn wooden table to bring them to his lips instead. "It pleases me to please you. And don't pretend like a bloody second that you're not enjoying it."_

"You brought them with you?"

"Everywhere. Always. One to wear and one for backup."

"You thought we were going to the bloody highlands."

"Still have to pass through London to get there," Q says, as he switches on the coin-sized CCTV scrambler and slips it into Bond's pocket, his own already stowed. He lets his fingers linger there for a moment more, rising to his toes to seek a kiss. Bond yields it and watches him a moment more, amused and awed both by his quartermaster, before they turn to go.

And to his pleasant surprise, when Q goes, he doesn't stop. Gone in an instant is the reserved, surly engineer with his preference for grandpa sweaters and tea with his cats. Gone is the young man held captive and forced to age beyond his years. Scarf bundled around his neck, a grin tilting his lips sideways, Q appears now every bit his age, if not younger than. The stress of their work slips from their shoulders. Their fingers lace. And Q who has never left his native land plunges with abandon into Paris.

Never did Q let himself imagine he would see it with his own eyes. He would be constrained, always, by the binding oaths he swore, a life lived vicariously through the surveillance equipment of others. And he damn well knows how many strings Bond must have pulled to allow this to happen - no doubt M had to give personal approval of it. He knows just as well that it may never happen again.

So when Bond brings him to a pastry shop, Q picks three and they share them on the hill leading to the great white Basilica atop, fed from each other’s fingers and flaking across their coats. When they mount the steps to reach it and overlook the city, autumnal leaves lit like fire across the crowns of trees, Q listens grinning as Bond tells him of a mission that sent him skidding down those same stairs. They share a cigarette, with the excuse that they're on holiday.

They kiss, often.

Here, for the first time in the months they have allowed themselves to share with each other, they present their relationship to a world of people who just look on by. It is refreshing. It is intoxicating. Q laughs often, keeping his hands at his sides or around James as he does, no longer covering his mouth to push the pleasure back in as though it's something that should be hidden.

They see the tower from afar and neither strive to follow the hordes of tourists to see it closer. Their Paris has it as a backdrop, a constant reminder of where they are with no demand that they prove it.

The Paris they see, the Paris Q had asked to see, involves small shops and old books. Bond dutifully translates as Q seeks through the piles upon piles of old textbooks and selects most to take home with him. They drink coffee. They kiss under a shower of autumn leaves as quiet violin filters from a nearby park.

In moments felt by both, shared through lingering glances and shy smiles, they see what their future could hold. The chances are slim, statistically insignificant in truth, and dependent on forces far outside their control. Both must first survive their tours of duty, Bond in body and Q in mind. Both must work to make this last throughout unconscionable strain and the distant hope that they will be allowed their freedom to live as they choose, not as they are instructed even once their time in MI6 is complete.

Both must save the world, in order to share it with each other.

But the taste of sweet pastries and the woodsmoke scent of autumn in Paris is enough to fuel them both to radiance. Laughter comes so easily between them, teasing the other and discovering their partner from new perspectives. It is a hint of what could be theirs, and it is enough to give fire to their fight.

"I'd ask what you're interested in for supper, but I've a feeling you already have that planned," Q muses, an arm through Bond's and his cheek against his shoulder, as James shifts Q's bag of antique textbooks higher on his shoulder.

“Perhaps,” comes the quiet reply. They walk in stride, now, down the little cobbled streets, down the long well-paved new ones. They walk as though they have walked together forever, as though they will continue to do so. Both fear they may not. Both hope they always will. Neither ever admit to being romantic, though both know they are. It is enough, really, to have that unspoken secret between them, to have that sweet chastisement murmured in bed.

“Somewhere so lavish,” Bond muses, “that perhaps they may not let you in without you running a comb through your hair first.”

Q’s hand immediately goes to his hair and James laughs, a warm and delighted sound. The wind has turned the perpetually messy curls into something of a disaster, and to Bond, Q has never, ever looked more ravishing.

"Prick," Q mutters, before leaning closer to the man who has earned that title and so many others. "You'll remember, I'm sure, that we were meant to be stranded in the moors. I've not even got a tie with me, let alone a jacket. I'm wearing sneakers."

Bond hums, resting a hand over Q's where it lays against the inside of his elbow. "If only we were in a city that lends itself to fashion."

"James."

"Ateliers and couture boutiques."

"You didn't have to kidnap me to get me in a suit, you know."

"But now that I have, I can."

Q ducks his head and smiles when his hair is kissed. He darts a look around them out of habit, but no one stares. No one even looks. No one pays them any mind at all and the sensation of normalcy is so sweet it's nearly unbearable to think of how quickly they will return to lives of shadow and secrecy.

So he doesn't think of it, and he lets Bond drag him on.

The shop they enter does not look like something on Savile Row. It doesn’t look like something that would grace the covers of fashion magazines or appear in its spreads. It is old, and smells of dry cracked soap and warm dust. It smells of heavy fabrics. It feels like walking into an old familiar home and being immediately welcome.

Bond sets down their bags and greets the proprietor with open arms and a warm murmuring of brisk French. It sounds different to the French spoken in the city, it’s slightly accented, softer, some vowels dragging longer than others. Q wonders if perhaps this is the dialect that James had spoken at home. He wonders how long he has known this man and how long he has given him business.

He says something and the man turns to Q, welcoming him with a hug and a kiss to each cheek as though he has known him forever. He gestures, speaking quickly and smiling, and James nods. Then the man goes, and Bond turns to Q to nuzzle against his hair.

“I may have made a few calls.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did. So once Jean comes back with your suit, if you would kindly stand and allow it to be adjusted. I had to guess your size.”

"Letting you order dinner for me wasn't an invitation to take liberties," Q tells him, but even feigned displeasure is impossible to maintain. His eyes narrow in a smile as he allows Bond to loosen his scarf and remove his gloves.

"It wouldn't do to rest on my laurels, darling."

"You know you needn't court me quite so vigorously. I'm already wooed beyond reason."

"And allow you to feel less than that for even a moment? I simply can't abide it. Besides," Bond says, "it gave me ample opportunity to consider all the measurements of your figure, in detail."

Bond's hands rest against his shoulders, and Q leans in to brush a kiss against the corner of his mouth. His coat is slid free, held over James' arm, and Q grins as they nuzzle closer before the sound of the door opening again startles him back like a spooked hare.

With a glance across his shoulder, Q allows himself to be escorted to a changing room, the suit hung beside a mirror for him. Steel blue with unevenly spaced pinstripes in chalky grey, it reminds him immediately of a screen's distortion, cycling through fuzz. It's perfect. His fingers follow the notched lapels, down the sleek and modern shape of it. He changes slowly, settling into the soft shirt that lies cool against his skin, his clothes folded aside. Against his throat he knots a tie that would be garish - hunter green and overlaid with roiling gold and crimson florals - were it not paired with so sharp a suit.

There are even shoes, a pair of Oxfords in an otherworldly blue-green.

It's perfect. All of it is perfect.

Everything fits almost impeccably, just the slightest adjustments needed on the hemming of his pants, on where the button is placed on his suit. But the rest… the shirt, the tie, the shoes… the color of it all, the taste level and a spark just bright enough of whimsy to bring a smile to Q’s face.

This is a suit bought for him by someone who knows his taste. This is a suit requested by someone who wants to see him look and feel confident, as well as beautiful. That alone, if not for how much Q already loves it, would be enough. He lets his hands run over the heavy fabric, just warm enough, incredibly comfortable. He lets himself look in the mirror, regarding the figure he sees there. Already his shoulders straighten, already his chin lifts just a little. And a moment more of hesitation holds him before Q moves out of the changing room and into the main area once more.

James is doing up his cufflinks, hardly concentrating on such a practiced movement. He stops entirely when he sees Q. It’s a look Q has seen before, something akin to longing and nostalgia but warmer than that. A nostalgia for the future, perhaps, a thought of what could be and what should be. Bond’s eyes skim over him not in hunger but in adoration, admiration, awe. He looks at Q as though he cannot believe the man is real.

Q's smile spreads as he looks away, overcome. "Still need a comb for my mop, I'm afraid."

"I wouldn't change a hair," James tells him, drawing a breath as Q turns for him, glasses flashing as their eyes meet again. "Do you like it?"

"It's alright," Q shrugs, only allowing time enough for Bond's lips to slacken before he laughs. "Of course I do. It's extraordinary. I feel bloody unworthy of it."

Bond conveys his praise to the atelier, who ducks his head with appreciation. Stepping closer to Q, James smooths his tie and spreads his lapels flat; he cups his cheek and strokes a thumb beneath his eye.

"All it's missing is the elbows worn thin from leaning on your desk, and a few strands of cat hair."

Q snorts a laugh and turns his head away shy as Bond leans closer, but he's turned back by firm fingers and they sink together in a slow kiss, Q's cheeks heating bright.

The atelier fusses around them, hardly caring for the kiss itself so much as the time it will take to adjust the suit on the younger man. Q is made to stand on a small stool as new adjustments are made, quick hand stitching so impeccable it would give any machine a run for its money. The button is adjusted, just enough to allow a little more give when Q shifts and breathes. The rest is already perfect. He stares in the mirror until he is handed a heavy cardboard bag with his clothes in it and kissed on the cheek again.

“You’ll become his muse if you’re not careful,” James murmurs to Q as they leave, his own clothes in a similar bag, a charcoal grey suit and maroon tie gracing his form. Oxblood brogues clip deliberately against the ground as Bond leads them on. “With your puppy eyes and messy hair.”

“Sod off.”

“Never.”

Q breathes a laugh. "Good," he says. "I should have figured you for a private tailor. You don't seem the sort to buy off the rack."

"There are perks to the pay. Bespoke suits and fine dining. Good drinks and better company."

"I suppose I polish up alright," Q allows, spanning a hand down the front of his suit. "Is it everything you dreamed of, when I rebuffed your advances so rudely?"

"Better than, because you haven't," Bond tells him with a smile. "You're ravishing."

"Or will be soon enough," responds Q, with a sly and crooked grin.

The rainfall seems more imminent than ever, clouds darkening to deep bruised blacks as the sun sets. Neither of them have an umbrella; neither of them hurry to seek one. They take their time through the winding city, stopping to observe buildings of interest, as Q confesses that he once considered studying architecture, though he finds that the construction of his networks satisfies the itch well enough. But he notices as the buildings begin to change around them, from classic splendor to a warmer residential area.

“Don’t tell me we’re going to the home of some well-known relative for dinner.”

“Close,” James laughs, hoisting the bags he carries a little higher. They will take a cab home, he thinks. Laden as they are, happily drunk as they will be. “It felt like home for a long time.”

They continue walking, as around them the streetlights flicker to wavering, warm life. On and on, through residential streets and little alleyways, roadside cafes and -

“You’re kidding.”

Bond grins, holding open the door to the smallest, shabbiest looking diner Q can imagine in such a place. “Not at all.”

"This is what you needed me in a suit for?" Q whispers, though he hardly has to with the bustle of noise that surrounds them as they step inside. Exposed brick and wooden floors, a row of stools beside a long bar. A few little tables on their own and booths that look like dimpled leather couches set against the sides.

"I didn't need you in a suit for this," Bond tells him. "I wanted you in one."

"I feel like I'm going to a bloody school dance," Q laughs. "Overdressed and under-dined. Not that I ever went to any school dances, but I could imagine."

"Perhaps later we'll see the rest of that imagining through."

Q sucks his bottom lip between his teeth and smiles wide, following Bond through the little diner to a booth in the back. Now they garner looks, far too overdressed for a place populated mostly by students. Q takes the seat facing away from the door, to allow Bond his back to the wall.

"Why here? I'm not complaining, mind you, I could ruddy well go for a burger right now."

“Because you are hardly impressed by lavish restaurants where the portion of the meal is only a decoration against the snow-white plate.” James smiles as Q snorts. “And, because I thought you might enjoy a burger, after such a long day.”

“You bought me a suit.”

“I did.”

“And enough books to stock a library.”

“In a language you don’t speak, yes.” Bond’s eyes narrow more as his smile grows.

“You’re spoiling me,” Q accuses him. “If you think I was demanding before, what do you imagine that indulging that tendency will accomplish?”

"It will accomplish sharing meals and travel with you, as we are now. It will allow me to see you beautifully attired and happy about it," he points out. "I'll get to enjoy watching you sprawl across the bed with your books and help you translate them."

"And when my need to be spoiled increases?" Q asks, brow lifting as his eyes narrow in a smile.

"All the more opportunity to meet your exacting standards," Bond says, gathering Q's fingers from where they rest on the worn wooden table to bring them to his lips instead. "It pleases me to please you. And don't pretend like a bloody second that you're not enjoying it."

Q spreads his fingers against Bond's mouth, increasingly shameless, increasingly scarlet-cheeked for being so. He crosses his legs and leans closer across the table, their eyes seeking the other's gaze in hazy low lights. "I would say I'm becoming accustomed to it," Q says, leaning in to kiss around their fingers, and feel Bond's lips slide against his own, nearly there just as their waitress claps down two menus on the table.

Q nearly topples from his seat, cursing a blue streak.

She merely smiles, eyes narrowed in amusement.

“Your menus,” she says, her accent strong and lovely, and Q swallows before thanking her, taking them up to hide behind. She gives them both another look before turning to saunter off back towards the bar.

“You’re lovely when you’re flustered.”

“Shut up.”

James grins and Q can’t help but laugh. They are dressed to the nines in bespoke suits that cost more than he most likely makes a month, sitting in a diner down some forgotten street in Paris about to order burgers for dinner. It is at once so adorably funny and so incredibly unreal that Q crosses his feet beneath the table and drops a hand to pinch himself.

“I,” James says after a while, “think I will have a beer or two.”

"Really," Q breathes, genuine surprise in the widening of his eyes.

"I like a nice lager as much as the next man."

"It seems so ordinary."

"Are you disappointed? Would it shatter the myth entirely if I told you I sometimes watch a match on the weekends?" Bond teases, and Q's cheeks ache from smiling.

"Not at all," Q tells him. "I think I'm more charmed by that than the unconscionable amount you just spent to dress me for burgers."

"Wish I'd known that before I had it made. All you need to be won over is a pint and football."

Q laughs, giving him a rueful look before turning to his menu. He knows what he wants, but it affords him a moment to consider how curiously resonant the image is that Bond describes. His agent, impossibly dapper and entirely suave, slumped comfortably in a sofa, with a beer in one hand and a game on. Perhaps Peter purring on his chest. Q curled beside him on the couch, coding.

It's as wonderful as Paris has been, no less lacking in magic for its domesticity.

"One for me, too, I think. Or perhaps two for me, too," Q decides. "And a burger, medium-well. And chips."

His agent smiles, sits back in the booth to watch and wait. His own menu remains closed, he has been here enough times to know what to get, what his usual is, how to amend the order to be just how he likes it. He had been coming here for years, as a student, as a soldier, as an agent, as any number of anonymous men every time he has found Paris to be on his flightpath or his final destination.

The waitress returns, and with a smile takes their order, dictated to her in succulent French. She leaves. Bond sets his feet, crossed, between Q’s where they rest slightly open, crossed at the ankles only.

It is intimate, quiet, gentle. It is so normal for the two of them it is laughable, surrounded by paper bags of books and clothes, dressed too well for anything but the opening night at the opera, waiting for messy burgers to be set before them for dinner. And Q can’t look away for more than a moment, though he does that often, fleeting glances back and forth, a widening smile that he tries to demure as he considers the man across from him who has given him so much. A fine new suit that Q could never afford with a mortgage and two cats to feed. A trip to Paris that he would never be allowed to take. Books and dinner and a beautiful hotel suite.

And most of all, normalcy, a gift so rare that Q never imagined he would again enjoy it.

“You’ve done it again,” he finally says. Bond’s ankles tilt against his own, gentle contact that quickly warms. “You’ve rendered me speechless. I don’t know what to say to thank you enough.”

“You needn’t say anything at all,” James tells him, but Q shakes his head. “Seeing you so calm is enough.”

“But if I wanted to do something for you,” Q says, “and don’t just make a joke of it, because I’m really asking. If I wanted to do something for you, I don’t even know where to begin. You’ve done so much,” he says, brow creasing, “and all I’ve done is make snide remarks and cover your things in cat hair.”

James smiles, adjusts his position to sit as their food is brought to them, their beer set cold to the table on paper coasters that quickly absorb the condensation slipping down the glasses. He takes up a potato chip, fingers turning it over and over before setting it between his teeth.

“Do you know how wonderful it is to be able to wake up next to you and hear you breathing in the morning? To have you mumble something in your sleep and shove against me with nonsensical vocalizations that I should feed the damn cats because it’s my turn to?” He asks softly, smiling wider when Q’s cheeks darken to a beautiful blush. Perhaps he’s never realized he voices these things, always half asleep when he does. “You give me patience, which I rarely get from anyone. Time. Understanding that my work takes me to all manner of places and returns me not altogether whole back to London.” He takes another chip, holds it out for Q to take. “That is what you give me. Never tell me that is not enough.”

Q takes the chip between his teeth and draws it between his lips, pressing his hand to his mouth as he chews, eyes bright. His chest aches, so full with his agent’s words that he finds his heart beating faster for them. He could argue, certainly, that he’s also a pain in the ass and, as Bond has not incorrectly called him on main occasions, a demanding shit. He could argue that never in a thousand years might he create the courtship that Bond has created for him.

But James isn’t asking for that. He’s asking for quiet mornings and a soft place to land when a job is done. He’s asking for a cup of Earl Grey at the right moment and a firm embrace at another. He’s asking for the gentleness that comes with understanding, and that, that is something that Q has to give him. No one else in the world has tied themselves so intimately to the other’s nature as the quartermaster has to his agent. No one else sees in him, without a word being spoken, what he needs and can respond without hesitation to it.

Q rocks their legs together and lifts his beer. “Just doing my job,” he says, grinning.

“Git,” James tells him fondly.

Dinner passes with laughter and stories. They talk about everything but work. They talk about the city, they talk about the cats. They talk about how lovely Paris is on rainy mornings and predict that perhaps they will get to witness that together the next morning when they wake. They talk about waking late and drinking strong coffee. They compliment the other on his suit and laugh like children at the words.

Two beers become three. Dinner becomes dessert from a shared plate. Outside, it begins to rain.

“Bollocks.”

“Cab?”

“Cab.”

James calls for one as Q waits by their booth, bags at his side and body gently swaying from exhausted and slightly tipsy pleasure. The rush of tires against sodden street and Bond’s uplifted hand brings his quartermaster to attention, gathering their things and ducking his head as he steps out into the downpour. Their things are stowed, James holding the door, but before Q slips inside he grasps his agent by his lapels and drags him into a kiss.

Water cascades over them, pulling Q’s curls down against his face and spattering his glasses. The wavering glistening of sallow city lights fades as he shuts his eyes and their lips sweep firmly together, until a honk from the driver breaks their kiss and with a grin, Q lets him go to slide into the car. Bond takes only a moment to run his hand down his face and flick the rain from it, before joining him.


	13. Merge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Jean’s suits can withstand bloody landslides,” he laughs. “I’m sure they won’t be undone by a few tugs and turns…”_
> 
> _“You’ve destroyed armored vehicles, built specifically to withstand_ you _, with little more than a blink, James Bond.”_

It is with breathless delight that Q resists the urge to pin James down in the back seat of the taxi. He keeps his hands folded in his lap, fingers laced, gaze turned towards the fogging window as the city flicker-flashes by in sharp turns and speedy ascent back to their hotel. Q doesn’t need to touch him now; he can feel him as if they were pressed one atop the other. Vibrations in the air between them, their atoms joined in orbit, every breath heard and every shift of movement enough to ripple goosebumps through him.

Q has never felt so alive before.

Drenched again in rain as he ducks to the hotel, he drips past well-appointed guests in the bar who pause in sipping their cocktails coffee to observe the two men enter laughing. Beautifully dressed, wild as schoolboys left alone on holiday, Q hoists their things towards the stairs but turns as Bond stops by the concierge. Q needn’t be near enough to hear him - he can read the man’s lips effectively by now, from the moments that coms have been disrupted.

He sees _champagne_ and turns away with a snort and a grin so as not to spoil the rest.

He makes the door just as the elevator dings beside him and James steps out, hands behind his back, brows up in question. He tries to keep his smile demure when Q snorts, tries not to laugh when the key his quartermaster holds fails to find the lock, twice, three times before it clicks. He follows Q into the room and takes up one of the bags to help hoist it inside and then the door is closed and elegant hands are in his hair and James presses his shoulders to the heavy wallpaper and moans.

He asked for champagne and strawberries. He requested they be left outside the door and that they not be disturbed until morning. He holds against Q now and trembles, as much from being entirely drenched as the adrenaline that runs through him at being so close to him, so near, in every single way possible.

“Beautiful,” he pants. “Infuriating. Perfect man.”

“Cocky, charming bastard,” growls Q in response, grinning as he catches Bond’s bottom lip between his teeth in a nip and sucks it softly. James’ eyes hood and close, lashes fluttering before he pushes into another fierce kiss, fingers fumbling at each other’s finery. It’s tricky business, not helped by the headiness of the day itself and the beer that followed, certainly not helped by their clothes being wet.

Bond snares Q’s tie and tugs it free with a flourish, earning a narrow smile and a raised brow from his quartermaster. “Careful, 007. I know how you like to break my things but let this one survive, will you?”

Bond moans, a low and animal sound of need but he obeys, eyes closing and hand loosening on the tie as he bends his knees. He lets Q stand taller than him, lets the slighter man press him to the wall and kiss him breathless, tugging his hair to arch his neck and press hot sloppy kisses against it.

“Jean’s suits can withstand bloody landslides,” he laughs. “I’m sure they won’t be undone by a few tugs and turns…”

“You’ve destroyed armored vehicles, built specifically to withstand _you_ , with little more than a blink, James Bond.”

He shivers hard at the sound of his name snapped by his quartermaster, digging their mouths together, their hips, pinning Q to the wall. He lifts a leg over Bond’s hip and with a hop, the other, hooking his heels and sliding his arms around his agent’s neck and rutting roughly against him. Q is lanky, but light, easily turned and carried when Bond slips his hands against Q’s well-tailored ass and squeezes hard.

It’s met with a tug of thin fingers through blonde hair, bending their mouths apart. “You’re a menace,” Q tells him, kissing him again as if for emphasis. “You’re my menace.”

Another step carries them back, and another, both precariously in danger of toppling until - before Bond can toss him to the bed - Q whispers for him to stop. He does. A shift of muscle is enough to signal that he wants to be let down. James does that too. Q grasps his hips and turns him away and Bond’s hands lift to the wall on either side of a thin mirror.

Q presses against him from behind and seeks his tie with elegant fingers.

“Look at you,” he whispers against Bond’s shoulder, watching their reflection through rain-speckled lenses. “Why on earth do you think you’d need to woo me so hard for me to love you? I was hopeless for you since the moment you told me I have spots.”

James lifts his eyes to meet Q’s over his shoulder in the reflection, fingers curling a little against the raised wallpaper. He could say something. He could say a great many things. But instead he watches, he parts his lips with the tip of his tongue and he sighs soft as Q tugs his tie a little tighter. He watches, with drunk eyes and lax form and a delightful feeling of pleasure zinging up and down his body.

Then he smiles, and arches his back.

Q tilts his head and rubs his cheek against the firm line of Bond’s shoulder. He sighs heat there, warming cool skin through the man’s wet jacket, and pulls his tie loose in a slow tug. A kiss is pressed but hardly felt beyond pressure, and Q hushes his agent when he rumbles displeasure at the distance between them. Fibers, only, but still too far.

Q wraps his arms around James to unbutton his jacket.

“Do you feel it, as I do, when we’re apart? That we’re not apart at all, but tied together through every breath we share,” Q murmurs. Another button slides free. “Every one of them, against my ear but lacking only the warmth of you so near. Every fear, every jolt, every moment that you swell and grit your teeth and drive on, James, I am at your side.”

Bond lowers his arms just enough for Q to slip free his jacket, and toss it to the chaise behind them. Their eyes lift and meet in reflection, a gaze not held directly but held all the same.

“It’s the only way I can sleep at night,” he murmurs back, shivering as Q presses hot palms against his sticky shirt, and hotter kisses to his shoulder. “When I can’t immediately turn over and touch you there. When I know you’re bloody miles away.”

Another shift brings James’ ass up against Q’s hips and he smiles, deliberately clenching and relaxing to feel Q respond to him, from just that bare movement, just that small gesture alone. 

“It’s incredibly hot when you tell me off over the coms,” he continues. “Do you know, I sometimes cock up just to hear that delightful exasperated sigh of yours.”

“I fucking knew it,” swears Q, laughing as he snaps open a button at Bond’s throat. He frames his agent’s jaw with his palm, stroking softly, his other hand slipping between buttons to stroke soft stomach beneath. “I’ll have to lay into you more next time,” he grins. “Q Branch loves it when I do.”

“Your minions.”

Q hums but doesn’t argue that, continuing his steady progression down James’ shirt. He draws a sudden breath when it slips open and reveals bare chest and flexing muscle. He pushes harder against his agent’s ass.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. Can you imagine,” Q asks, “had we met in a pub? We’d have flirted, maybe had it off, and gone our separate ways? Damn MI6 but I’d never have seen you as you are, in your element, extraordinary in ways beyond measure. I’d have never been that voice in your ear, guiding and scolding you, as you lead me ever onward.”

“Through rug markets and exotic back alleys,” Bond laughs, groaning when Q holds him still and rocks up against him. Pushing up on his toes to rest his chin against his agent’s shoulder, he turns to nose behind his ear as his fingers continue to explore the bare chest he knows so well, tweaking a nipple, petting over it, lower, lower and up again, teasing. “Would you have been so bloody hard to woo had you and I met in a pub?”

“Harder,” Q promises. “Impossible.”

“Difficult to imagine you being more of a pain,” his agent laughs again, lowering his arms when Q’s insistent tug against his shirt bids him to. This is also tossed to the chaise, and a hot kiss snares against his shoulder as Q works up higher to the back of his neck.

“I’d not have been in a pub,” Q grins against his skin, nosing into his hair as his hands span down Bond’s belly, and he watches sidelong in the mirror.

“If you were.”

“For the sake of argument?”

“For the sake of argument.”

“I’d have surely been alone,” Q imagines, “attempting to read over a pint. And here you come, crushingly handsome and more charming than can be reasonably trusted. You’d say something coy and force me to re-read the line I’d already read.”

Without removing Bond’s belt, Q pushes his hands lower, beneath the waistband of trousers and pants alike.

A groan, low and needy, and James slips one hand down as though to wrap around Q’s but a hum or warning has him set it palm-flat to the wall again. He tries to turn his head to look at Q but another kiss against his jaw keeps his eyes forward. The message is clear: he will be fucked and he will watch.

The thought alone jolts through Bond like a bucket of ice water had been poured on him.

“And then?” he breathes.

“I’d give you a patient smile, indulge you with an intimation of my own in hopes that it would satisfy you, and without waiting for a response, I’d turn back to my book.”

“Cold, Q.”

“Bitterly,” he whispers, before his voice snaps sweetly to a moan as he presses his fingers through coarse curls of hair and finds Bond’s cock beneath his fingertips, rising hot against his touch. “But you wouldn’t be swayed, would you?”

“No,” comes the sighed reply, Bond’s eyes close and he rocks forward into Q’s grip that immediately slackens. Until he opens his eyes, laughs, curses softly, and lifts them to the mirror once more. Then his belt is undone and he swallows.

“I would have tried everything. Terrible pick up lines -”

“Would you have?”

“Oh yes.”

“Such as?”

James laughs, shakes his head and bites his lip before raising an eyebrow and meeting Q’s blown eyes in the mirror.

“Flip a coin,” he says. “Heads for head.”

“And tails?”

“Get my pants off and find out.”

“Oh Christ,” Q laughs, charmed despite himself, charmed as he would have been in this imagined scenario, reluctant but won over. He presses his brow to Bond’s shoulder and nuzzles the curve of skin where it meets his neck, touching kisses, sucking warm marks that will linger into the next day.

“Even a bad pick-up line works sometimes,” Bond muses. He watches dark hair fluff again as it dries, soft against his bare skin. The wool of Q’s rain-wet suit rubs friction against his skin where gentle thrusts rub Q’s pleasure against Bond’s backside.

“I’ll give you that one,” Q says. “You make me laugh. But it is a _very_ good book,” he adds, slipping Bond’s belt free with slow turns of his wrist, curling it around his hand.

James shivers watching the belt, curls his hands into fists against the wall and sets his legs wider. Outside the door there is a sound of something being set down and quiet footsteps walking away. Bond laughs and shakes his head.

“I’m going to come from you just talking to me, you realize that?”

Q laughs, a breath sighed hot against Bond’s throat. “You’ve become accustomed to my voice. God help us both if it happens afield.”

“Speaking of Q Division having a laugh.”

“Train you to a Pavlovian response to it,” Q murmurs, delighted by the thought when the threat of their reality is so far away as to seem an abstraction. He unbuttons Bond’s trousers, the zipper’s growl enough to pull prickles across their skin in tandem.

He drops Bond’s trousers.

He shoves his pants down to his ankles.

And with his agent bare before him, reflected in the mirror they both watch rapt, Q shivers a soft sigh and rocks himself forward to rut slowly against Bond’s backside.

“I ignore you,” Q says. “After that terrible line, unable to yield you a true victory in making me laugh. You ask me my name and I don’t tell you,” he grins. “You tell me yours and I lift a brow. What am I to do with it, now that you’ve told me?”

“Cruel,” James murmurs. “Cruel and terrible thing you are.”

His cock twitches as Q rocks against him, harder with every shift and touch. Bond bends forward until his forehead presses to the mirror, though he continues to watch Q in the reflection. After a moment he smiles.

“Not wooed by charm or money, not by a terrible sense of humor or a good sense of intuition…” He pushes up on his toes and settles again. “What about base human jealousy?”

Q blinks and turns his face against James’.

“Tell me.”

“What if I went to another?”

“I would guess at your disinterest.”

“And if every time he laughed, I looked to you?” Bond turns far enough to kiss the tip of Q’s nose and smiles. “If every time he made a move I showed interest, but never, not once, looked away from you?”

He can feel the reaction, a sudden pulse of heat against his backside, Q’s cock stiffening at the blissful antagonism in being desired and teased all at once. “I miss your company, already, when I see another enjoying it,” he says. “Perhaps I was won over by your charm and humor after all. Perhaps I’ve taken my resistance a step too far, for a book whose title I hardly remember now, replaced by the memory of how warm I felt when you came so near.”

“You’re jealous.”

“Bitterly,” Q laughs again, dropping Bond’s belt to the floor and rubbing firm hands down the crease of his thighs. He curls his fingers beneath his balls, up through dense hair and around the base of his shaft. “But how do I get you back to me? I’ve always been terrible at this.”

Bond’s lips part on a low groan as Q strokes him, sleek fingers flashing white in the mirror’s reflection, wrapped around dark, taut skin. With his other hand, Q unlatches his belt, the click enough to dry Bond’s mouth and speed his heart. He curls his fingers harder against the soft wallpaper.

“A look,” Q whispers, kissing behind Bond’s ear and meeting his eyes in the mirror. “A little wistful. A little sad. Accustomed, perhaps, to disappointment in this way but the sensation far from lessened for its familiarity.” He sucks his bottom lip between his teeth, eyes wide and doelike as he slips his zipper low.

The agent's entire body trembles. He curls his hands into fists and presses his cheek to the glass, breath fogging and vanishing against it over and over as he watches Q with narrowed eyes.

“And if I stepped away?”

“I’d follow.”

“Past the rest of the noisy place,” Bond's throat clicks, his lips purse and part again. “Through the small door, outside to -”

“Yes.”

“Q.” It’s a moan, needy and aching, and James drops one hand from the wall to reach back and snare his fingers through soft damp curls, bringing his quartermaster closer. They kiss against the side of the other's mouth, when Q does not let Bond turn himself away from the mirror. His cock slots against his agent's ass, still bound in his briefs, so stiff the tip peeks from beneath the white waistband. Steady rutting pushes their breath together, panted where their lips rest parted against the other.

"Right against the wall," Q whispers. "Just like you had me the first time. Irresistible, irritating man."

He hooks his thumb into the top of his briefs and slips them low, tucking the elastic beneath his balls. Bare skin rubs hot against bare skin, Q already so close just from this, from their words, from watching Bond tremble in the mirror before him. The hand that strokes Bond tightens, twists, corkscrewing in steady curls of his wrist, tightening beneath the head to push his foreskin high, slipping it low once more to bare the head.

"I'm going to have you," the quartermaster says, a high moan rising free when his hair is tugged. "Just like this. And then you're going to have me, however you like. I want everything with you."

“Yes.”

It is fumbling and dirty, a fucking rather than anything else, and neither would have it any other way. Spit enough to ease the friction but hardly smooth it, and both pant against the other, hands clasping together, mouths damp from the hot air groaned sobbed and moaned against them.

James pushes back to every thrust, arching his back and turning his hips, enjoying every deep deliberate push of Q inside him.

Harder.

Deeper.

Over and over.

Q can hardly look away from their reflection, watching through hooded eyes the alternating strain and pleasure, tightening and relaxing across Bond's features. His body is riveted firm, every muscle pulled beautifully taut beneath skin still tanned from wherever he was before. Q squeezes their fingers together against James' stomach; he tugs his cock in time with his own thrusts, burying himself a little deeper each time.

His knees are weak from the undulations of his agent's body around his own, and Q laughs against Bond's shoulder. The sound is carefree and sweet, hardly the snarling demands spoken moments before. Here they are free to fuck, to share intimacy, to live and love as they see fit. Here they are free to let their voices carry with abandon the delight rushing heady through their bodies.

Skin contacts skin in soft slaps, again and again as Q plunges into the depths of his agent, bent and bared for him, willing and wanting. He releases Bond's length when he feels his stomach tighten a particular way. He sets it to his hair instead, to lift his eyes and watch himself, as Q meets his gaze in the mirror.

“Fuck -” It’s enough. It is more than enough. It is embarrassingly too much, and James bucks forward, making a mess of the mirror as he does, shaking and dizzy and enthralled. Behind him, Q watches with similar awe. 

Games and filthy things, lovely things and soft things. They share everything. And here, too, in Paris of all incredible places. 

Because James had wanted to show him. Because Q had gotten on the plane trusting entirely that James knew what he was doing.

He loves him.

The thought strikes as almost overwhelming and Q presses his teeth to James’ shoulder as he comes, hard, within him.

He all but sobs with the next breath he can take to fill him, orgasm unspooling in wild waves that force him to clutch to Bond as much to keep himself standing as to press close against his back. They tremble together, hips shifting in unconscious twitches, slow thrusts to pull long their pleasure. Q spans his hands over Bond's shoulders, arms wrapped beneath his, head tucked against the back of his neck.

James' come trails in thick dollops down the mirror, and when Q raises his eyes again, he sees it and laughs.

And he keeps laughing. Aftershocks of climax ricochet through Q as he slips himself free but does not let go of his agent. Overwhelmed, snorting as he tries to stifle his laughter, the sound hitches shorter and shorter until Bond turns himself to gather his little engineer close. His cheeks are damp and ruddy, but his smile as wide.

"Time for tired quartermasters to get some sleep," James murmurs against his hair, but Q quiets him with a kiss, leaning into him until Bond's back presses to the mirror. Nuzzling and holding close, they stand in a tangle of clothes for a moment more, before James toes off his shoes, steps out of his trousers and underwear and leads Q with careful steps to the elaborate bathroom. 

“Start the water,” he says, nuzzling into Q’s hair and kissing him with soft needy lips, again and again. “I’ll be just a moment more.”

He wets a towel and returns to the mirror to wipe it clean, taking up his clothes as he stands with a wince and draping them in a semblance of neatness over the chaise. Then, wrapping the towel around his middle, he opens the door to their suite to bring in the champagne in its bucket of ice and the plate of bright strawberries - sourced only God knows where - on a silver tray.

He returns to the bathroom with a berry between his teeth and a smile warming his eyes. He bites it in half and offers he rest to Q, as the other continues to undress and steam fills the space around them. Slow shifts of shoulder and twists of hips find the fine fabric of his jacket and shirt peeled free, as Q's kiss-flushed lips wrap around the strawberry. He takes his bite and smiles lazy as he chews, folding his shirt and his trousers in turn to set aside. Striped socks are tugged off clumsily, his dampened underpants slipped down skinny legs. His glasses are removed last, and when he turns it's with an arm across his stomach and the other draped to cover his cock.

He doesn't resist, however, when Bond takes his wrist and loops it over his own shoulder to bring Q near. Their kiss is sweet as spring, lips reddened ripe with arousal and berry juices. Q lets himself be slowly waltzed towards the enormous tub that fills for them.

"You win again," Q says, glancing toward the tub before stepping in and with a gasp and a groan, lowering himself slowly. His eyes flash mischievous. "Even at a pub, I couldn't resist you."

“Good,” James murmurs, stepping in after him and sinking into the water. Neither will stay awake long with the heat here and the exhausted pleasure pulling through their veins. He moves to tug Q close again, letting the quartermaster unfold and press chest to chest with him.

“I think,” he says, voice a mumble and a purr at once, “that perhaps I will inform our pilot that there will be another day to wait before we head back to London. What do you think?”

Q bites his lip, smile wide, and he tucks it against James' neck, nuzzling close and settling heavy atop him. "On two conditions," he begins. Bond groans and Q presses his fingers to his agent's mouth, laughing. "Quiet, 007. Listen to me. The first condition is that you pretend not to notice when I check in on the cats remotely."

"You've a two-way set up with your bloody cats?"

"Of course," scoffs Q. "Second condition -"

"If it's making me say hello to them too, I'm out."

Since his fingers aren't working to quiet Bond, Q kisses him instead, cupping his cheeks in his hands. "No," his quartermaster tells him. "The second condition is that you qualify our request to the pilot. Let him know it will be at _least_ another day," he grins, and this time, it's Bond whose kiss quiets him.


	14. PAN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Q, you -”_
> 
> _“Work too hard?” Q interjects with a smile, tired but genuine. “No, 007. I work as I’m meant to work. And so on those nights when I’ve had a manageable day before it and enough coffee to keep me going a bit longer, I come here. It’s quiet. My cats are here, in a fashion,” he says, shrugging and tilting his cheek against Bond’s palm all at once, to watch him with softened eyes. “You’re here, now, which makes it better. And I’ve a little while to myself to do what I love.” He tucks a kiss against Bond’s palm. “It isn’t as though you don’t benefit from it,” he adds with a grin._
> 
> _“I would rather see you rested,” James admits, but he's smiling, watching Q work, trying not to speak in a way that would interrupt him. He is beautiful, exhausted and lovely. “You are extraordinary.”_
> 
> _“Hardly.”_
> 
> _“Entirely.”_

Q works late most nights, and horrifically late others. When Bond is in the field, he practically sleeps at headquarters, carrying around his mug and slugging along in slippers and comfortable pants. 

By the time most of his office has cleared, Q sets up a remote access video call to his home.

James has speculated that he’s hidden cameras all over the place, but hardly for the reason anyone else would. Q doesn’t obsessively survey his home for intruders. Q calls his cats and talks to them so they don't get lonely. 

He sits with his legs folded in a bigger chair, dragged down to the workshop from his office. His shoes are on the floor and he leans across his bench, tongue pressed between his lips as the system connects to home and he squints at the spread of components beneath him. A beep turns his attention to his laptop, and he removes his electrostatic discharge gloves to swap from his computer's screen to the enormous panel spread across the wall overlooking the workshop.

Another click switches on the lights, illuminating his living room from afar. The image is crisp and clear, little delay and no buffering. And no cats.

He normally doesn't disrupt them, content enough to feel like he's at home while he works, glancing up once in a while from his work to remind himself why he's spending the night at headquarters instead. But it's been a day, solace offered now only in the form of quiet, lonely work on his devices, undisturbed. He squints, and switches to another feed. Neither are they in the kitchen, so he tries the bedroom and finds them both curled into little loaves on the bed.

Bond watches, from the doorway, and finally realizes what the cube on Q's desk is for, aimed towards the bedroom door but wide enough in scope to take in the entire space. He recalls, distantly, that it has a screen on it, as well.

To be fair, he's hardly paying attention to the gadgets scattered about when he's in Q's bedroom.

"Good evening, gentlemen," Q says. Peter flicks an ear back but Desmond lifts his head, splaying onto his side and stretching his paws wide. "And how are you both?"

He receives a squeak of welcome as the furry cat stretches his entire length and arches his tail. Desmond is Q's favorite, though he would claim to never pick favorites. He greets Q and follows him like a puppy. He curls in his lap and purrs endlessly while the man works.

Bond has had many a silent war with that cat, trying to oust him from Q's lap to lie there instead.

Some attempts are more successful than others.

Bond watches still, wanting to see this sweet domesticity play out before rudely interrupting it.

"Haven't moved a muscle all day, have you," Q murmurs fondly, as Peter rights his ear forward again and Desmond stands. He stretches his paws out in front of him with a wide, toothy yawn and a squeak, and Q grins. "Loafers. You can hardly even be bothered to stand, let alone earn your keep around here."

He slips his gloves back on and takes up a minuscule screwdriver, watching the screen above his glasses now and then as he continues his work. It is a means to ease his mind, productive still but without the pressure of overseeing assignments or being jettisoned between meetings. Even the workshop tends to be overrun during the day, and he required to oversee more than anything he'd rather be doing.

His best work has always come out of these liminal spaces, between home and work, between dusk and dawn. Clarity of mind and calm gives fertile ground to new creations, beautiful things all made for the protection of MI6 and the country they serve. All made with his agent in mind.

Desmond leaps from the bed to the desk and rubs his face purring against the little monitor, and Q laughs brightly. "Hello darling," he says. "I miss you too. Listen to how clear that microphone is - I can actually hear your little rumble, you great squeaky beast."

Bond can't help it. His heart swells. Q is as gentle with these creatures, as comfortable with them as he has grown to be with his agent. Same sweet tone, same genuine concern and adoration. He wonders how long it had taken Q to set this up, so that his cats weren't lonely, so that he was not.

He toes off his shoes by the door and tiptoes quietly into the space, making his way towards Q and the enormous screen currently covered in furry cat.

“Unbelievable,” he murmurs, smiling when Q jumps and turns to look at him with wide eyes. “You actually do this.” It is teasing but it is also truly soft, the entire situation so endearing. “And they actually talk back.”

“Of course they do,” Q mumbles, quickly attempting to press the blush away from his cheeks and sighing when he realizes he’s still wearing his gloves.

Bond bends to kiss Q on the cheek instead and pull up a chair to sit beside him. “You’re working late.”

“Not enough hours in the day to do all that needs doing,” Q says, still red with embarrassment, but offering a slight smile. “Less than that to do the things I’d like to do. Make new devices for you, for instance. You who is also here far later than you should be.”

“Thank heavens for it,” Bond says. “Otherwise I’d have missed you communing with your cats and - what is that?”

He glances upward. Desmond takes up half the screen, sitting altogether too close to the camera, and proceeds to groom himself. Beyond, Peter has stirred with a _chirrup_ and perked ears. Q looks back to the pieces laid out before him and shrugs, folding his fingers together.

“A new scope,” he says. “I’d like to connect it to night-vision lenses, goggles or glasses, in such a way that the reticle is seen through the lenses themselves. It’ll take a little getting used to but you’d not have to lift the gun to your eye to target. Helpful if you’re shooting in the dark, you know?”

“No,” Bond murmurs, setting his hand to Q’s thigh, not to distract but to warm and ease the tension from him. “Peter.”

Q look up and smiles, watching the lanky independent feline stretch and mash the bed when James says his name. The cat is contented, delighted to be acknowledged, awakening as happily as Desmond did to greet the voice that he has decided he answers to now - in as much as cats answer to anyone. 

“Say his name again.”

Bond narrows his eyes but obliges, listening to the trilling mewl that comes his way from the bed. Q laughs, a sweet and quiet thing.

“He missed you.”

“Bollocks,” Bond mutters, but he is smiling, his cheeks warm with pleasure at the thought. “I have absolutely no care for Peter.”

Another, louder demand is made by the little black cat, immediately responsive to his chosen person saying his name. Q raises a brow at Bond, doubt etched so cleanly that he needn’t say a word to argue, watching as Bond leans towards the screen. Tapping his computer’s camera, Q redirects him, and Bond gives him a wry smile.

“Peter,” Q says, as Desmond’s paw pauses mid-whisker cleaning. “Peter, come here, you little pudding.”

There’s nary a flick of ears, at least until Bond laughs, “Pudding?”

Desmond squeaks as the table rattles, Peter clearing neatly from bed to desk to shove his adopted sibling aside with a rough, full-body rub against the camera.

“No, he hasn’t missed you at all,” Q teases, removing his gloves once more. “Absolute bollocks.”

James mutters something in French but it hardly matters. The little cat takes his time marking the screen as his own before disappearing over the top of it and out of sight. Q watches Desmond return to grooming himself, and tells him that he misses him. Both of them. And then returns back to work.

Beside him, Bond sits unmoving, not wanting to interrupt Q as he works, keeping his eye on the screen merely for curiosity’s sake.

The little engineer shifts enough to rest his shoulder against his agent and James turns to kiss his forehead.

“You’ll be exhausted.”

“Often am.”

“Is it really so vital that you work on this in the middle of the night?”

Q hums a little, tongue between his lips again as he works in a tiny screw. He finishes, in steady turns of his wrist, before lifting his eyes above his glasses.

“Well, I suppose not,” he muses. “I could do it in the morning, but for the Division-wide meeting we have to review our project pipeline. Could do at lunch, but that time belongs to reviewing a new security breach we’ve found in a system that’s been under probe for the last three weeks. M’s got me all afternoon in all his meetings, and if I’ve time to breathe between then and evening, I need to file three reports on recent assignments I’ve overseen.”

Bond blinks.

“Perhaps then, there’s time the morning after,” Q begins, but Bond lifts a hand and sighs, before running his fingers through his quartermaster’s hair. Q grins and chases him with a kiss, held to his wrist.

“Q, you -”

“Work too hard?” Q interjects with a smile, tired but genuine. “No, 007. I work as I’m meant to work. And so on those nights when I’ve had a manageable day before it and enough coffee to keep me going a bit longer, I come here. It’s quiet. My cats are here, in a fashion,” he says, shrugging and tilting his cheek against Bond’s palm all at once, to watch him with softened eyes. “You’re here, now, which makes it better. And I’ve a little while to myself to do what I love.” He tucks a kiss against Bond’s palm. “It isn’t as though you don’t benefit from it,” he adds with a grin.

“I would rather see you rested,” James admits, but he's smiling, watching Q work, trying not to speak in a way that would interrupt him. He is beautiful, exhausted and lovely. “You are extraordinary.”

“Hardly.”

“Entirely.”

Q blushes and bites his lip before continuing with his work. Bond sits back and watches him.

After a moment a hum comes from the monitor, low and continuous. James frowns, worried that perhaps Q’s impeccable work is going to waste keeping all of this equipment pristine. He hesitates to interrupt, but finally does, as Q reaches for another piece of electronics.

“Q -”

“He’s purring.”

“What?”

“Peter,” Q confirms, flicking his eyes to James. “He’s atop the screen near the microphone and he's purring.”

Bond manages to react outwardly with little more than a hum and a thinning of lips, and he hopes beneath that mask of faint disapproval he can hide how surprisingly Q’s words warm him. In an existence that’s barely one at all to the world at large, to be missed in one’s absence becomes an extraordinary sensation. It’s a gently aching tug towards home where he knows his presence is known, desired, and appreciated.

Even if it is only a cat that’s missing him right now.

“It’s only because it’s warm,” Bond muses. “I suspect that’s his motivation for lying on me, as well. Sapping my body heat in a drafty house.”

The purring amplifies, and Q grins, leaning into Bond’s shoulder and rubbing his cheek against his suit’s stiff wool. “Marking you as his territory. He’s chosen you as his person, you know. Pays me even less mind than he did before.”

James carefully drapes an arm around Q’s shoulders and holds him close. Both are tired. There is an assignment pending, hanging over both like a cloud that promises rain but doesn’t quite follow through yet. He turns his head against Q’s hair and with a smile he nuzzles there. More and more deliberately until Q laughs and asks him what he's doing.

“Marking you as my own,” he says.

Q snorts when he laughs, tucking his grin against his agent’s shoulder. “Choosing me as your person?”

“Hedging my bets in case you weren’t already.”

“Wise move,” Q acknowledges, tilting his head to turn Bond’s nuzzling to his cheek, to his throat, nose wrinkling as he’s tickled there by the brush of Bond’s nose. “Unnecessary, I should tell you, but I can’t say I mind the reinforcement of knowing by whom I’m claimed.”

“Very good,” Bond murmurs low against him, gently catching Q’s cheek to hold him still to kiss him, deep and lazy and loving. He hums when he pulls back, rubs their noses together and then lets his quartermaster work.

“Where are you going?”

“Your coffee is cold,” James tells him. “I doubt you have eaten since your last mandatory meeting, and as I can't curl up on you for warmth I may as well make myself useful.”

“I can unlock the house for you if you’d rather go home,” Q says, though the last word gives him a moment of pause and a filling flourish of pleasure when he realizes he’s said it. His cheeks warm and he bites his lip, exchanging a smile with Bond.

“I’d rather be with you,” Bond says. “Even if it is bent over a desk. Actually -”

“Coffee,” laughs Q. “Please. And remind me when I’ve time to program in a code for you to use to get into the house.”

“Bloody sap,” Bond tells him fondly, leaving the main room with Q's mug to head towards the Division’s kitchen. There is little here beyond what is needed to make hot beverages. Coffee in a bucket sized container, sugar in a similar one. There is food, but enough only to tide over a hunger between meals.

It will have to do.

It is meditative, making a drink when he knows Q is working. He has become entirely accustomed to doing just that at home.

Home.

Not his cool flat that feels like a show home. Not the old abandoned estate in Scotland. But the little house in the suburbs, with two cats and far too much technology built into it. Where he knows how many steps to take to get downstairs, where he knows that the fourth one down squeaks. Where he is used to the smell and the sensation of it, and the couch is as much a place to doze, covered in cats, as it is a place to listen to Q explain his equipment to him.

Home.

It has been an incremental shift, as Bond supposes it is for most everyone. A second toothbrush beside the sink. A few articles of clothing left behind. The thought, when flung far afield, of coming back to a bed shared with another. In gradual movements, they have come together in more ways than the extraordinary connection required by their work - in that, they already shared thought and spirit. Then they shared their bodies. And now they share a quiet area reformed gently into a space for both of them, a soft place to land and find themselves made whole again.

A muttered greeting pulls Bond’s attention upward and he bids good evening to another heavy-lidded engineer, one of Q’s minions working the night shift to monitor the vast array of endless information incoming to MI6. Bond tells him that there’s coffee, as he fills Q’s cup, but if the engineer notices, he says nothing but a deeply gratified thanks as he takes his fill too.

Desmond has occupied the whole of the screen when Bond returns, laid in a loaf with his big paws tucked beneath, wrapped around with a fluffy, twitching tail. Q is deep in his work, muttering softly to himself and working out swift-flowing code on his computer. He jumps a little when Bond sets his mug beside him, and all but groans at the smell of it.

“You’re a bloody godsend, you know that? Or an enabler. I’ve not yet decided which.”

“Both,” Bond prompts him, settling in beside him and crossing his arms over the table as he lays his head atop. Desmond’s eyes are closed, mouth turned in that particular way to suggest feline joy. He doesn’t move but for the intake and exhale of breath over and over that also powers the endless purring that rumbles welcome through the microphone. 

For a while, all James does is watch the cat, a meditative and calming thing that brings his heart to a slower beating, that eases his mind. A black paw stretches out above the screen, toes splayed, and disappears again as Peter changes his position incrementally.

Bond can feel his eyes closing and turns his head a little in his arms to watch Q instead. 

Without looking towards him, without James’ subtle shift even in his quartermaster’s peripheral view, he lifts a hand from the keyboard and sets it to his hair. It’s as if the air shifted slightly, his attention felt on a molecular level by the man more attuned to him than any other. Slender fingers work through short blonde strands as Q types - at half-speed, but unrelenting still - with one hand.

Bond can’t help but wonder at the strength of that connection, and how far it can stretch and still be felt acutely. Q knows when he hasn’t eaten and ensures food is placed before him, by room service or rearranging scheduled events to afford the time for it. He knows when he’s had enough to drink, and sobers him with a reminder of the task at hand. He knows when Bond misses him and aches for him, and when a moment of privacy is afforded them, he tells him he loves him and soothes his heart with domestic mundanities of his day.

“I’m waiting for you to join in purring,” Q remarks, a smile in his voice.

“Soon,” Bond assures him, letting his eyes close as he allows and enjoys the gentle petting. He had tried domesticity with others. Men, women. But there was always a barrier in his work, always his long hours and danger. Always something that drove them to a safer and more welcome partner.

Perhaps it is their work that binds them, but it has been a long time since that has been the only thing to do so.

“Drink your coffee,” James mumbles.

“Soon.”

A moment, a breath, a warmth of childish delight, and Bond sighs and lets his tongue roll in a low trill, imitating the purring that fills the speakers around them. Q laughs brightly at the sound, and as if startled by his own joy, lifts his typing hand to his mouth. His other hand curls firmer in Bond’s hair, fingernails stroking against his scalp.

He can’t contain another laugh when Peter’s purring fills the microphone again, and all around him are three purring creatures who he loves dearly.

His own little family, a concept that Q had years before removed from consideration. From the moment the SIS arrived at his college to meet with him, it was made abundantly clear that while being chosen for this work is an honor of the highest calibre, it is not without sacrifices. He would be obligated to lie to his family about the nature of his livelihood. Relationships would be difficult, if not impossible to maintain. He would be, and has been, in every essence of himself, expected to relinquish himself and his own interests to the greater good of protecting their country - indeed, protecting the world.

Q could not turn down such a calling as that, and began a slow and steady severing of himself from the various lives that he’d imagined as a university student. He would not take partners. He would devise an alternative life to present to his family. He would not form one of his own nor anticipate the opportunity to do so, given that even after his work at MI6 is complete, he would be expected to remain off-radar and under surveillance, lest he be compromised.

He considered himself something of a monk, for many years, focused whole-hearted on his work and his devotion to it. The cats were an acquiescence to his still-human need for contact and comfort, and a way to ground himself when his labors became overwhelming. Even monks kept cats in their monasteries, he reasoned, and it would have been enough with that little facsimile of family.

It was, for many years.

But to have found such intimate connection with the agent he was tasked to oversee was an unpredictable bug in the coding that Q scripted for himself from the start. And as errors occasionally do, Bond’s altered presence within his life shed light on new potentialities previously unconsidered. He need not worry that his long hours at headquarters would decimate a relationship. He need not fear that the lies necessary for a partner who did not share his work would become burdensome. And though they are not without their own grave concerns, the weight of their worry is shared, and it makes that burden all the easier.

And maybe, just maybe, they will be allowed to keep what they have found for themselves.

Q blinks at the cursor, unmoving for minutes, on his screen, and turns to Bond. Slender arms slip around his agent’s neck and Q pulls him close against his chest, nuzzling into his hair with a warm sigh. There aren’t words enough that Q knows to convey his thanks, for the company and coffee, for the comfort and consideration.

He kisses his hair and lays his cheek against it, and hopes that says enough.

His agent settles against his chest and enjoys the closeness. It is late. Q has work to do and he will not be tempted from it. Chances are that he will sleep in the office come the early hours. 

James wishes he didn't have to.

“I'll find something for us for dinner,” he murmurs against him. “And you will bloody well eat it.”

Q tucks a smile against his hair, heart responding quick to his agent’s warm breath and warmer words against his chest. He spans a hand up through his hair and hugs him closer, clumsy across the chairs they sit in, but enough. Perhaps this is why MI6 frowns on fraternization, when the hours that Q would normally devote to a fugue-state of creation are now compromised by an overwhelming desire instead to return home.

He turns his eyes to the enormous screen shining down on Q Division’s workshop, and the rest of their family that lies as close to them as they can be, wrapped around a warm computer.

“I’ll come with you,” Q says, sliding his arms free only to stand, wincing stiff at the movement. He smiles anyway. “We’ll get something for take-away on the way home.”

“What about the militant dedication to incomprehensible hours?”

“Bollocks to the hours,” Q replies, stretching his arms over his head with a groan. “I think M takes it for granted now how often I take overtime. He might even commend me for finally allowing the finances to be dedicated somewhere they are needed.”

Bond snorts and stands with him, watching his quartermaster as skillfully take down his set up as he had put it up in the first place.

Beautiful, incredible, stubborn man.

“Chinese,” he offers.

“Turkish,” Q counters. “With their sweet coffee and baklava too.”

“Spoiled sod.”

“I love you,” Q tells him, and James just watches him a moment, stunned that such a sensation can exist within them. Love. Adoration. Devotion. 

“Fine,” Bond sighs, but not without taking a kiss in exchange, held long against his quartermaster’s temple. “Turkish. But only if I get to feed you the baklava from my fingers.”

“Cad.”

“And you love me,” James reminds him, to a snort from Q.

Q shuts off his terminal and switches back to the cats on his laptop. “We’ll be home soon, you fluffs,” he tells them, though neither react to it. “Silly beasts.”

They gather their things, Q’s station in the workshop left tidy and his computer slipped into his bag. He drags his wheeled armchair with them as they go, shunting it back into his office before closing off the lights. And though MI6 is still active - always aware, always watching - there are few enough to notice as Q slips his hand together with Bond’s, and they walk out together.


	15. Debugging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I’ve not taken a sick day since university.”_
> 
> _“Then you’re overdue.”_

It was inevitable. That it hadn't happened sooner is just a testament of the man’s stubbornness against everything, including his environment.

Q wakes early and immediately buries himself against the heavy form of his agent in front of him. He’s shaking. He’s so bloody cold. He shouldn't be, covered in cats and pressing up against a hot body but he is.

A moment, two, and James turns sleepily to face Q and wraps his arms around him. Q keeps shaking. Bond’s breathing shifts to a waking rhythm and he hums.

“You’re burning up.”

“I’m freezing,” Q mumbles. He nuzzles beneath Bond’s chin to seek out the warmth of his throat against his lips. Another shiver ripples through him and he groans low when his body aches acidic from the pressure pulling his muscles taut. Bond’s hands are a welcome hurt, at least, against sensitive skin, rubbing across Q’s back and shoulders.

The cats stand and stretch and readjust, settling atop Q once more.

“You’re sweating quite a lot for being cold,” James tells him, touching a kiss to his brow as much to gauge his quartermaster’s temperature as to comfort him. “You’ve got a fever.”

“I haven’t,” says Q. “No.”

“Darling, stubborn as you are, your body can't quite lie as well as you can.”

“I’m not sick.”

“I would hazard a guess and assume you are exhausted, your mind and body finally reaching a limit.”

“I don’t have limits,” Q complains, snuggling closer.

“I’m going to make tea,” James sighs, bringing a hand to his eyes to rub there. “And you are going to stay in bed all day.”

Q clings to him, hands against his shoulders, a shudder shaking through him again and fought down with a grumble of displeasure. In increments, Bond detaches himself from his quartermaster, hushing him with little sounds and kisses against his sweaty brow.

“I’ll be fine,” Q says, as Bond finally pulls away and Q brings a hand to his eye to rub. “It’s fine. I need to go in, we’ve got -”

“Nothing you can do in this state.”

“Meetings.”

“You’ll get all of MI6 ill.”

“We have to review the pipeline with M.”

“M will understand.”

“Bollocks,” snorts Q, before a sharp cough against his fist sends the cats scattering to disparate corners of the bed. “No, he’ll have my hide for this.”

“Stay in bed,” James chides him, tugging on a pair of trousers and making his way downstairs to the kitchen. A black shadow streaks by and James snorts. “Clingy bastard,” he murmurs, bending to run his fingers through Peter’s short fur. “Go keep your owner warm.”

The cat, predictably, does not.

James sets up the kettle, tosses teabags into two mugs for the both of them and adds the juice of half a lemon into the mug for Q. Peter meanders between his legs, stretches up against him, pawing at his knee, and regales Bond with all the happenings of the night he so lazily missed out on seeing.

“I hear you,” he murmurs. “I hear you, Peter. The whole bloody neighborhood hears you.”

He feeds them both, in their analog dishes rather than the automated ones located elsewhere. They’ll eat from the other’s bowl, both from the same, why Q even bothers to keep two is a mystery that Bond’s yet to uncover. He returns to catch the kettle right before it squeals, and fills both their mugs. As the tea steeps, he seeks through the cabinets for any sort of medication.

The bathroom perhaps, his next port of call as he brings the tea back upstairs and deposits each by their respective side of the bed. Hidden beneath a swath of blankets is the trembling form of his quartermaster, no doubt obstinately waiting for an opportunity to make a break for the door and headquarters in turn.

“Don’t you dare do anything but drink your tea,” Bond tells him, running a hand down Q’s side and frowning at the groan in response.

“It’s only -”

“No.”

“But I can -”

“Stay in bed you stubborn man,” James laughs, finding some aspirin in the bathroom cabinet. He supposes he will have to pick up more when he's out today. It's hardly a chore.

He hears Q shift in bed and glances back into the bedroom, eyes narrowed. He makes sure Q sees him before he returns to the bathroom again.

“If you don’t think that I can bodily restrain you from going in, you’re sorely mistaken, quartermaster.”

Q curses at him, but the effect is muffled by the pillow into which he grunts. He snakes an arm out of the blankets just enough to pull Desmond squeaking beneath, as Bond returns to seeking. There’s very little here. Shaving apparatuses and coordinate creams, an extra bar of soap. A travel-sized tube of toothpaste which strikes Bond as mysterious considering his partner’s combined inability and refusal to travel. He finds a sheath of over-the-counter flu medication that will have to suffice, and brings it out with the aspirin.

“Sit up a little -”

“No.”

“Then how are you meant to go to work today?”

There’s a pause in Q’s unsteady breath, and Desmond emerges fleeing from beneath the blankets as Q slowly, painfully drags himself upward. He’s white as a sheet but for where his cheeks are blotched red. Sweat shines against his skin and his lips part dry. Red-rimmed eyes look to the pills he’s offered, and Q takes them, washing them down with a shaky sip of tea.

“You’re not going to work today,” Bond tells him, and Q nearly coughs into his tea.

“Sod off, you just said -”

“You’re not going to work today,” Bond repeats, sitting and watching Q whine even as he takes continuous sips of his tea to keep warm. “You are going to sleep. I am going to get you something from the chemist and come back.”

“You have to be at work -”

“There is no bloody way I am leaving you to your own devices here alone,” Bond laughs. “I have reports. Where they're written is hardly important.”

“M will have us both skinned.”

“Good, then we can retire and buy a home in Chelsea,” James tells him, leaning in to stroke Q’s messy hair from his forehead, frowning when he feels Q shiver again. “Please stay in bed,” he implores.

“I’ve not taken a sick day since university.”

“Then you’re overdue.”

Q closes his eyes when Bond’s hand strokes through his hair again, and he relinquishes his weak grip on the mug when it’s taken from him to set aside. In truth, the thought of even managing into clothes makes him feel woozy. Navigating the tubes is unimaginable. Trying to abide meetings and answer questions, impossible.

He slips back slowly again, to lay half-propped against the headboard, watching Bond with a plaintive look.

“Does it have to be Chelsea?”

James just smiles, delighted always by Q’s mind, regardless of distraction - or, it seems, illness. He is cat-like in his independence, and just as feline in his aching for affection when he wants it on his own terms.

“Anywhere,” he promises. He leans forward once more to give Q a kiss on his forehead, humming his displeasure at his quartermaster’s fever. “I won't be long. Please do try to get some sleep.”

“But the cats -”

“Will keep you company. They’re already fed.”

“You will come back?” Q asks, and it’s a childish worry spoken in a childish voice. He pulls the blankets around his head and shivers, resentful of his weakness and unhappier still when Bond’s look towards him is so gentle.

“Always, darling. You know that.”

“I know that,” Q mutters into his pillow, whimpering softly when Bond’s hand strokes through his sweaty hair.

James hesitates a moment more, only long enough to see Q’s eyes begin to drift closed. He seeks out clothes enough to not be indecent, avoiding Peter around his feet. Finishing his tea at once, he goes, quickly, to find a corner chemist.

In the sudden, lonely silence of the house, Q snuffles. His body aches as if it’s been bruised all over, every shiver painful down to his pores. The cats curl up against him but it isn’t the same as Bond being there - demanding, wonderful man. Half-dreaming, half-waking, Q tangles himself in blankets as he turns in slow kicks and twists, sweat-soaked sheets clinging to him, the covers too heavy and not warm enough all at once.

From the depths of this twilight state, he calls out for James, and there is no answer. It’s been hours, hasn’t it? It must have been, which leads Q to the only reasonable conclusion he can reach: that James isn’t coming back. Perhaps he simply doesn’t want to get sick himself. Perhaps he’s dismayed by Q’s illness and the lack of personal fortitude that could allow it to happen. Perhaps he was waiting for the moment that Q couldn’t put up a fight to finally go, and when they do return to work, it will become a game of wearing invisible blinders to pretend the other isn’t there, that nothing happened, that the near-year they’ve known each other so intimately never transpired, that…

“Oh, God,” Q moans, falling to the floor with his legs ensnared in sheets as he tries to hurry to the bathroom to be sick. He has to make it, he tells himself, fighting his ankles free and his bile down. He has to because if he’s sick in his bed he’ll have to clean it up himself, or lie in it, and isn’t that the most pathetic way to be? Covered in sick and cat fur and alone.

He scrapes his knees against the floor and drags himself to the bathroom. When he reaches it, Q slips to sit on the wonderfully cool tile beside the toilet, and loses from himself the last kindness that James showed him before he fled.

Who can blame him?

He should have agreed to the house in Chelsea.

\---

James finds that once the trip begins, it is hard to come home with simply a little box from the pharmacy. He makes a detour to the market for more lemons, ginger, and chicken. At the store he opts for something easy on the stomach to tide Q over until he can take the broth and keep it down. He gets honey. He gets more tea than they could drink together in a lifetime.

So laden, he heads home, sharing brief communication with M over text messaging to inform him of their quartermaster’s condition.

James pulls into the drive and with a sigh hefts the bags to the front door. The cats, predictably, greet him at the door, and he uses one foot to hold Peter back from slinking out as he shoulders the door closed. From upstairs comes an unmistakable sound of pathetic displeasure, and James only sets away what needs to be refrigerated before heading to the bedroom.

Q is curled like a child on the cool bathroom floor, the blankets trailing from bed to his toes that are still buried in it where he lies.

“Poor sod,” Bond murmurs, kneeling to pull Q up to sit against him, stroking his hair. “Not good at following instructions are you?”

“I think I’m unwell,” Q murmurs, as Bond drags the blankets nearer to wrap around him, tugging them free from where Desmond has taken the opportunity to lay on them. Q shivers and curls closer in Bond’s lap, scalding hot forehead set against his neck.

“So you believe me now?” Bond asks, almost amused if concern didn’t take its foremost place. He sinks his arms around the shaking little body of his engineer, rubbing softly over tender skin.

“No, I believe my own results. From research.”

“Research.”

“I was sick, twice. I can’t remember how I got here. And you left me and weren’t coming back,” Q says, “because I am terrible.”

Bond curses softly but it’s hardly at the man in his arms, more aimed at the virus that holds him so captive. With something like this, no onset, an immediate effect, it should pass just as quickly, though the pain and illness and discomfort would be amplified in that time. With a sigh he shifts to slip his arm beneath Q’s knees, and pushes himself to stand, carrying his quartermaster back to bed.

Tea, then, for as long as he can keep it down. Honey and lemon and ginger. Soft bread for when the hunger becomes impossible to control. Broth, perhaps, in a day or two.

James gets into bed once he settles Q into it and rests against him.

“You think I would leave?”

“You did leave.”

“To get something and bring it back,” he reminds Q, who seeks blindly for his agent’s warmth and just clings to him. “Never would I walk out and not return. Even if you had never made it to the bathroom.”

He feels Q laugh only in the way his shoulders shift, the rest is trembling and fever and sweaty clinging hands. His quartermaster holds to him shaking, as much from fear as sickness, the former complicated by the latter, bringing to light insecurities that Q normally keeps under the same degree of lock and key as everything else in his life. A cough, pained, punctuates the silence.

“I ask too much,” Q murmurs. “I give nothing. I wouldn’t blame you, you know. If you went. I would spend the rest of my life troubleshooting all the things that I did wrong, but I wouldn’t blame you.”

“Hush,” Bond tells him, but Q shakes his head, obstinate.

“You’re too good to me. I fear it,” he says. “I fear it as much as anything. That you’ll tire of me. I’m tiring. That I’ll exhaust you. I’m exhausting. James,” he whispers, he whimpers, he aches and he pulls himself closer, hands trembling in his agent’s jumper as he hitches a dry sob against him, shivering weak. “Please don’t go.”

Bond says nothing, he just holds Q close and rubs his back, eases the coughing when it comes up, hushes his sounds of protest when he tries to say more. How long they lie together is unclear, and James doesn’t care. But moment by moment Q’s shivering eases and his breathing stops hitching as he falls into restless sleep. Talking sense to Q when he cannot think in logic and sense would be useless.

He hardly wants the man panicked - he wants him healthy.

It’s been a long time since his quartermaster had allowed his thoughts to run so wild as this in his fear, a long time since his insecurities choked him.

When Q eases to sleep entirely, James extricates himself to return downstairs, setting the kettle to boil and working together a mash of ginger and honey and lemon juice to dissolve in the hot water once it boils. As much of this as he can get into Q, he will try. Damned be how long they spend in that bed or how often the sheets need to be changed. Should he get worse, Bond will take him into London.

He can only imagine the protest that would raise, nevermind that there are physicians at MI6 who would gladly tend to him.

Q is most comfortable at home, in the privacy of his own self-made spaces. He ensconces himself within securities of his own making, layers of protection be they as complex as the computer system that girds his house or the same blankets he’s admitted having since university. And so he will stay, unless he worsens gravely; Bond will not force him to leave until the situation is dire enough to merit it.

And then, sod it - he’s going in a bloody cab and they’re going to headquarters.

The fourth step from the top squeaks when Bond steps on it and he curses beneath his breath, mug in hand. It’s the same thing his aunt gave him when he was ill, to wash down the more sensible medications he’s brought back from the pharmacy. Always, they are like this - a balance between old-fashioned sensibilities and newer technology.

Peter skids past him and lunges onto the bed where Q groans at the disturbance, turning towards his little cat and Bond in turn.

“Up,” James says carefully, balancing the mug as he holds out his hand for Q to take and wriggle up against the headboard. “Drink this. All of it, if you can, but if you start to feel sick just -”

“Hold it in?”

“Idiot,” Bond smiles, holding the mug out to him, then passing Q a series of tablets that help with anything from headaches to fever to nausea and sleep. “Drink as much as you can and don’t force yourself ill.”

Q is pale, eyes red-rimmed and hair lank against his brow, but he takes the mug without shaking and swallows the tablets dutifully. Washing them down with a sip of tea, he hums at the taste of it, then takes another sip. He doesn’t meet James’ gaze, watching instead the end of the bed where the cats tussle for space.

“Thank you,” Q says, his voice hoarse.

“Of course.”

When Bond settles to the edge of the bed, Q wriggles to make room for him. He closes his eyes when Bond rests his wrist against Q’s brow, and when his agent has finished taking his temperature, Q grasps his hand and brings it to his lips. There he holds a lingering kiss against his palm, and speaks softly into his hand.

“Would you really have changed sick-covered sheets?” He asks, eyes uplifting in a smile.

His agent pretends to consider, eyes to the ceiling as he watches through his periphery the way Q shivers and tries to keep his eyes open. The meds will have him sleeping for a few hours, if all goes well.

“I’ve had many messes to fix on assignment before,” he says. “Blood, bile, other terrifying bodily fluids and expulsions I am very glad to not have to clean on a regular basis. But believe me, quartermaster, that you being ill in bed would hardly put me off changing it so you could be comfortable again.”

Q’s cheeks prickle spots of scarlet at the words, a blush despite the pallor that’s come over him. He turns his nose against Bond’s fingers, nuzzling in slow sweeps of his cheeks back and forth. Another kiss is sunk against his palm before Q reluctantly releases him to grasp his mug with both hands again.

“Have I told you that you’re a saint?” Q asks, and Bond snorts softly.

“Never, and you’ll regret having said it when I remind you of it later.”

“I mean it.”

“You won’t when you’re well again.”

Q grins, sheepish, and takes another slow sip of his drink, sucking it from his lips before reaching to set it aside. James takes it gently from him, their fingers brushing, and he rests it on the nightstand. Strong fingers stroke Q’s hair from his brow and the little engineer moans low in his throat at the sensation.

“You’re going to get ill, too,” he warns. “Being so close to me.”

“Good,” Bond sighs, shifting to she can set an arm beneath Q’s head and hold him closer. “I could use the time off.”

Q laughs, or tries to, and after a while just rests, exhausted and sweating, against his agent. The cats shift against his feet and James’ heart beats beneath his ear and he slowly lets his eyes close and his mind rest, sigh by sigh.

Bond dozes with him, attuned to Q’s movements and breathing but letting his eyes close and his body rest as well. It is too hot beneath the covers, but he needs Q’s fever to break, he needs that part to be over before they can attempt the rest. Desmond moves to sleep against Q’s back, keeping him warm there, one foot and a tail hanging off the edge of the bed. Peter, for a change, climbs upon Q to sleep on him, leaving James catless and with the chance to sneak his feet from beneath the covers to cool a little.

They rest together long enough that the mug cools and the steam from it dissipates. Q snores, now, as he rarely does but in nights of utmost exhaustion - Bond knows the sound of it through the coms they keep open throughout the night when they’re apart, and Q manages to make himself rest for a few scant hours. He nudges closer to James now and again, seeking warmth, and in those moments James cradles him closer and breathes heat against his hair.

He tells him that he’s beautiful, even when he’s ill.

He tells him that he’s charming, even when he’s a stubborn prat.

He tells him that he loves him, over and over and though Q sleeps through these quiet admissions, James knows that somewhere beyond the fugue of rest and illness, Q hears him.

And in the hours that pass, into the night, Q’s shivering begins to cease. His sweating stops and his body eases from taut constrictions of pain into a looseness. The fire beneath his skin gutters out. It is only then that James frees himself for long enough to use the loo and tend the cats, returning to the kitchen to find food for they and their humans in turn.

James starts on the broth and makes a sandwich, watching Peter watch him before the cat scales the distance between floor and counter without a sound and paws at him for a piece of meat. James casually grasps the little cat beneath his front paws and sets him to the ground again, that resistance still within him, when the cat begs for human food from his plate.

For how long, though, is a mystery to them both.

When the broth boils, he cuts up an apple and peels an orange, takes a piece of soft bread as well and makes another mug of hot lemon-ginger drink. Upstairs, Q still sleeps, having kicked the covers off himself now, shirt clinging to his back in sweaty swathes, shorts much the same. James sets down his own and Q’s makeshift dinner and covers him with a sheet, at least, so he doesn’t get a chill while already sick.

When he gets into bed again, Q blinks awake, nuzzling into the pillow as much to wake himself as to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

“Are you hungry?”

The question elicits a low, languorous grumble from the quartermaster, nearly a growl but warier than anything so aggressive. But he opens an eye and squints, reaching for Bond’s hand only to find it skillfully retracted to take up the soup instead. Q grins a little and hides his face again.

“There you are,” James tells him. “I know you’re hungry, even if you’re too stubborn to admit it. Sit up for me, darling.”

“Must I?”

“You must. It will be difficult to feed you when you’re lying down, unless you particularly care for the feeling of hot soup spilled against your cheeks.”

“I do not care for that,” Q decides, stretching out a hand from beneath the sheets to stroke his fingers against Bond’s thigh.

“Up, then. Come on, quartermaster, if you can run the whole of Q Branch then you can eat a pot of soup.”

Grudgingly, and with no small amount of groaning, Q drags himself laboriously upright, slumping his shoulders against the headboard. His smile doesn’t fade though, not entirely. It gathers in the corners of his eyes and lifts his lips a little, too, despite how he tries to fight it down.

“You made chicken soup for me?”

“If you tell me you’re vegetarian, I call bollocks,” James smiles, shifting to sit with his legs crossed at Q’s side, holding the heavy mug out to him, then the soft bread to eat it with to fill his stomach. “I made it with carrots and lemongrass. A bit of the ginger, but I kept it plain. You will eat it,” he laughs, when Q makes a face. “And you will like it.”

“Will I?”

“Yes.”

“Will you eat with me?”

“I already ate. And Peter tried to take a share, the greedy thing. We’ll need to start leashing them soon.”

Q snorts, dismissive, and takes the bread from Bond’s fingers to tear off a smaller piece. “You don’t leash cats, James. Honestly.”

“Why not?”

“Have you ever tried?”

“Of course not.”

“I have,” Q says, brows uplifting when Bond laughs in surprise. “That’s right. I thought once how lovely it would be to share a walk with Desmond.” He dips his bread into the soup to soak it up, and presses it between his lips. The response is immediate, eyes fluttering closed and a grateful noise aching from deep inside, fingers pressed to his lips.

“Desmond loves you.”

“He didn’t then,” responds Q. “He laid down on the floor as if he were comatose. I tried to coax him with kind words and handouts, which Peter promptly stole before bolting off again. It was as if Desmond were without legs, lying on his side and squeaking piteously.”

“Wait,” Bond interjects, as Q spoons the soup to his lips and lifts his eyes. “You let Peter take Desmond’s handout?”

“Of course. I didn’t mean for him to, but what was I to do? Tell him no, Peter, no. Cough it up immediately?”

James laughs, he can’t help it. The idea is so ridiculous - Q trying to coax his ‘proper’ cat with his ‘proper’ name into walking with him, while the other casually and joyfully stole free treats is enough to have him press a hand to his face to try and hold back the sound but he snorts anyway, too amused.

“I can’t believe you tried to walk your bloody cat.”

“Some people manage to.”

“I am more amused, I think, by the fact that you didn’t, than by the fact that you tried.” James pops a piece of bread between his lips and smiles, chewing.

Q grins, allowing this minor defeat and dipping his bread again. “Perhaps it’s illness speaking,” he says, “but that sounds nearly like a challenge.”

“Simply savoring the knowledge that there are certain things my quartermaster can’t do, after all.”

“Bollocks,” Q declares. He ducks his head into the crook of his elbow to muffle a cough, and clearing his throat, returns for another sip of soup. “I could certainly make it happen, but it would hardly be walking. That isn’t up to me. That’s up to Desmond, who wants no part of it. And it’s hardly walking if I’m dragging a limp cat down the sidewalk, is it?”

Bond’s laugh is nearly enough to unsettle the soup. Q watches him, their pleasure as contagious as the illness with which he’s undoubtedly infected his agent. His smile widens into a grin, and splits into a snort of laughter. “By all means,” Q finally says, “try to teach Peter how to go on walks. With my luck, he’d follow you like a well-trained dog.”

“I’m not going to walk your bloody cats,” James laughs again, curling his feet to the other side of himself and beneath Q’s thighs. They settle into quiet again, Q obediently drinking his soup until he can't anymore, after which time James happily takes it up to finish for him.

He leans over to press his wrist to Q’s forehead to check his fever again and hums, pleased, that it has gone down.

“Sleep,” he declares, taking up the bowl of apples and oranges, feeding a piece to Q. “After this we sleep.”

“We slept all day,” Q murmurs, but he accepts the slice of apple, bright eyes flashing upward and lips curling rosy around it. Bond sits up a little straighter, hoping Q doesn’t notice, though of course he does, eyes narrowing in delight.

“You didn’t. You dragged yourself to the loo and left a trail of blankets like some bed-bound garden snail. You were besieged by illness and cats. You need rest,” Bond tells him.

“Just let me -”

“If you say anything other than ‘sleep’ or ‘take a bath’, I’m tying you to the bed.”

Q tilts his head a little, smiling sly at the words before he shakes his head. “I need to check in to work. I could hardly see the screen to text M earlier -”

“We spoke. You are on bed-rest until whole again.”

“You told him you’re here?”

“It was inferred, and I’m not letting you near your computer.”

“Just to check my email,” Q pleads, and he glances swiftly to the phones all charging beside his bed, but it’s an error in judgment and he curses as Bond moves first. Bowl of fruit cradled in one hand, Bond reliefs all three phones from their cords, and stashes them beneath his thigh.

“Rest,” he says again, “please. One night, with me.”

A huff of breath slumps Q’s shoulders but he accepts the triangle of orange that he’s fed, almost morose but for the warmth that heats beneath his eyes when their eyes meet.

“Do you promise to tie me to the bed?” Q grins.

“If it comes to that,” Bond says, smiling just as sly. They slowly make their way through the fruit and by the end of it, despite his mumbling protests, Q is exhausted.

James doesn't go downstairs to do the dishes. It can wait. He strokes Q’s hair and settles it, and allows him to get up only to use the bathroom. There, Q brushes his teeth, washes his face, relieves himself. By the time he stumbles back to bed it is with a groan of pleasure to be cuddled close and nestled against. 

James folds him in a clean sheet and draws the blankets up over them both and nuzzles against Q’s damp curls. Beautiful lovely man.

“Silly thing,” he whispers. “This is what you get for overworking.”

“A plague?” Q asks, with more than mild horror. “That seems like overkill.”

“Hardly a plague. A virus that took hold because you run yourself ragged.”

“Viruses can be removed. Debugged.”

“Through rest,” Bond laughs against his hair, stroking through his curls with a firm hand until Q is all but purring his pleasure against him. “Let me rid your system of this one, hmm?”

Q doesn’t argue. He hasn’t the strength nor the interest in doing so, not when his agent’s arms are sunk deep around him and their legs twine together amidst an ensnarement of sheets. Not when soft kisses are pressed to his hair. Not when James came back, despite the wild and feverish fears that brough Q to the point of soft sobbing against cold porcelain.

He came back, and he stayed.

And Q can do little more now than love him for it, sleeping soundly against his chest.


	16. Operand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You already defy statistics,” Q murmurs, with the hint of a smile as his glasses turn askew in their nearness. “There’s not been a single agent with the record you boast.”_
> 
> _“And I do,” Bond says, “frequently.”_
> 
> _“Prat,” whispers Q, before their lips touch softly together, and then again._

“Thank you, sir.”

It’s all Q can manage with the stoic resolve expected of him. Bully for him that it’s enough to merit a wave from M, before he closes the door behind him.

The quartermaster’s heels ring echoing down the hall to his office, his laptop heavy in his arms, held against his tidy green jacket. He won’t be staying late tonight. He won’t be staying at all, in fact, given the dismissal to take the evening to _get some rest, Christ_ before work begins anew tomorrow.

Again.

Always.

Endlessly, over and over, it comes to this and Q has forever taken it in stride but can hardly keep his stomach still now as he sets his computer to his desk and leans against it. He wants to be sick. He can’t be sick. Stiff upper lip, he tells himself, a litany of virtues instilled in him by the British educational system and MI6 and his own personal sense of pride in his work.

“Fuck,” he whispers. “ _Fuck_.”

Again.

He sighs.

Always.

He should be used to it by now. Both of them. And yet…

Q shakes his head, brings a hand beneath his glasses to rub his eyes and sets them square over his nose once more. Because this is their work. This is what their lives mean. Theirs for someone else’s. Both know it. Both signed up for it.

And yet.

“Q.”

“007,” he replies, turning to rest both his hands on either side of himself against the desk he leans on.

“M said you had something for me.”

Q swallows a curse against their boss - their owner - that builds like bile, drawing a deep breath and clearing his throat. Bond smiles at the sound, but his brow creases.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter.”

“You always do that when something’s bothering you,” Bond says, closing the door - marked with a single letter on its glass - with a quiet click. Q tightens his fingers against the desk to stop their tapping and lets his hands slip to his sides.

“You’re going out again,” Q says softly. “Tomorrow.”

Bond’s jaw works, just enough to see. “I am.”

“Where?”

“Bogota,” Bond replies, taking a step, another, to stand closer to his quartermaster. “For a week, if all goes well,” he smiles. “It always goes well, Q.”

Q shoots him a dry look, lips twisting together before he forces them apart with a sigh. “I know,” he says. “I know, it’s all been fine before -”

“Always.”

“Always, so far,” Q says. He sucks his bottom lip between his teeth before steeling his jaw and his gaze in turn. “Statistically, there is always a risk -”

“Bollocks to statistics. They’re not cumulative.”

“No,” laughs the quartermaster, a dire sound, lacking any joy. “No, they’re not, but neither are they negated by previous results. Averaging a 52% chance of success, a 27% chance of success and return, less and less as you narrow it down and it’s always going to be like this, isn’t it? It’s always going to be like this.”

James steps close enough to cup Q’s cheek, holding him firm when he frowns and tries to turn away. 

“Q.”

He sighs. “What?”

“Look at me, please.”

It takes a moment. It takes two. And then he does, because he can't not. James leans near enough to press their foreheads together. 

“Bollocks,” he breathes, “to statistics.”

Q’s throat clicks when he swallows, but he nods gently, eyes closing as a soft nuzzle brings their noses beside the other. He long ago gave up trying to keep their relationship off the radar of MI6 - it’s impossible, when one is a member of the organization, perpetually monitored and to a far greater degree than even outside persons of interest. Too many missing videos would become suspicious, and paint them in a questionable light. Compounded by too many coincidences finding them in the same place, at the same time, further alarms would be raised. Easier to be frank and honest about what has transpired. Easier on them to allow their relationship to grow, in whatever stunted way it can within stark white walls, lit by grim overhead fluorescents.

“You already defy statistics,” Q murmurs, with the hint of a smile as his glasses turn askew in their nearness. “There’s not been a single agent with the record you boast.”

“And I do,” Bond says, “frequently.”

“Prat,” whispers Q, before their lips touch softly together, and then again.

And again.

Always.

A soft stroke against Q’s cheek parts them enough that Q can take in a breath that isn’t full of the familiar smell of his agent, and when he clears his throat this time, it’s firm. Decisive.

“If all goes well, you’ll be in and out,” he says. “Bogota’s a bloody mess of a city to navigate, worse in the area you’re headed toward, of course.” He turns to his computer and opens it, laughing softly as Bond’s arms sink comfortably around his waist. “Are you going to let me brief you or not?”

“Brief me tomorrow,” James murmurs against him, nosing behind his ear. “On the plane, where I will be aching and sore and exhausted and thinking only of you.”

“You won't listen then.”

“I’ll listen,” James laughs, lips curving soft as his eyes close. “I’ll remember.”

Q slips an arm over Bond’s and squeezes himself back against his agent’s chest, exhaling a breath held too bloody long. Their fingers twine together, and over Q’s shoulder, their lips meet at the corners, fitting warmly together. He recalls M’s directive to go home and rest.

He recalls the summons that long ago brought both agent and quartermaster to this place, a calling that both answered with pride and stalwart devotion.

Neither would relinquish their work, for anything. Neither would relinquish the other, for anything. What has brought them together is what hurts and heals them in turn, and so Q shuts his computer and turns to Bond instead. Slipping slender arms around his neck, Q pulls his agent against him and leans back against his desk beneath James’ kiss, a little noise caught between them.

James smiles, eyes barely open as he leans to kiss Q again.

“Come home with me.”

A small fussy sound is his only answer. James bends to grasp beneath Q’s thighs and hoists him to his desk, spreading his legs wider to step closer and hold Q still.

“Stubborn boy, come home with me.”

“The cats -”

“Will be fed as you always feed them,” James reminds him. “Called via long distance so they aren't lonely. You'll make me talk to them both.”

“And you'll pretend as though you don’t want to.”

James smiles, nuzzles Q, kisses him. “Please?” He tries again.

Q fans his fingers through Bond’s hair, smile caught between rueful and gentle. On any other night, he’d put up a fuss, insisting his agent return to his house instead. On any other night, the request wouldn’t rattle so deep into his bones and snare his belly tight.

_Come home with me._

A home as much Q’s as his own.

Their own.

Always.

“Fine,” he sighs, feigning exasperation until a laugh ruins the effect, and rises as he’s lifted from his desk. Long legs wrap firm and familiar around James’ hips, and Q peppers him with kisses. Nose and brow and the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes and the curve of his mouth and there, just there, again, holding long with another soft sound. “Take me home,” Q whispers.

Bond hums, and sets his quartermaster down before they both leave his office. Laptop dutifully in hand, Q follows his agent out the door and down the hall, stopping only to issue instructions to one of the young men in the Division in preparation for the next day.

They take Bond’s car.

They manage to beat the worst of the lunch hour traffic.

The apartment looks as un-lived-in as it always does, boxes still sealed in some rooms, half-unpacked in others. It is cool but not cold, and as soon as the door is closed, James leans with a groan against his quartermaster. 

“A hot shower,” he mumbles. “Something called in for dinner, and you.”

Q looks across his shoulder to his agent, resting heavy against his back. Strong arms usurp the place against Q's middle occupied by his laptop, and when warm kisses follow the knobby ridges up the back of his neck, Q ducks his head with a soft sound. His fingers spread over Bond's hand, pressed against his belly. He follows the rises of his knuckles, the veins that run dark between sinews and scars.

It isn't as if they've not done this before. It isn't as if they didn't know it was coming, regular as the tide. Warm breath stirs the hair at the back of Q's neck and he shivers. Laptop in hand, Q turns in his agent's arms and rests his own over James' shoulders, computer held against his back.

Inevitability hardly makes it any easier.

"Little early for a shower, isn't it?" Q smiles, catching Bond's bottom lip between his own as he's walked backward into the flat.

"Not when I want to see you wearing nothing more than your briefs for the rest of the night."

"Little cold for only briefs, isn’t it?"

"Q."

"Fine," the quartermaster laughs a little. "Anything you like. If you prefer me answering the door for delivery in my pants, you'll have it."

Q ducks away just long enough to set his computer on the coffee table before Bond snares him back around his skinny waist. Setting his hands to his agent's cheeks, Q follows with fond fingers the familiar curves of his features. He traces the bridge of his nose, the soft skin beneath his eyes. He thumbs the bow of his lips, and looks between his eyes.

"I'm sorry," Q murmurs, “for what I said in the office. I shouldn't have. It was thoughtless of me and I should know better than to let emotional response become a primary function.”

“Despite you claiming that you are as mechanical as your computers,” James murmurs, “you are anything but.” Another kiss, sweet and soft, and a nuzzle, and the forgiveness is unspoken, just understood and accepted between them. Q strokes his face and then lets him go, taking up his things to move them into the flat properly, set them down where they live when he is here.

His toothbrush is in the bathroom.

His sweaters balled up into little bundles in chairs and on the couch.

There are pieces of him all over the place as small reminders, just as there are aspects of Bond all over Q’s home as well. He smiles.

He'll come here, while Bond is away, once or twice at least. They'll open coms and Bond will smile, wide and irrepressible, to see his quartermaster in his flat, curled up in one of his jumpers, hanging long over bare legs. To be welcomed to another's space is hospitality; to share a place equally is intimacy, and endurance of the life they've built together. It makes the distance feel temporary.

It is. It always is.

Q sets his computer not beside the bed where it normally might live, but on Bond's dresser instead. Far enough away that neither will be bothered by the tug of work more than they already are, near enough to be conspicuous as it is constantly. He remains in the bedroom a moment longer, removing his shoes and his jacket, lingering to listen to the sound of Bond dropping ice into glasses in the kitchen.

His chest aches at the little clicks and footsteps, the hum as James searches for the right bottle, all little signs of life as familiar to him as his own heartbeat. Bruised ribs shorten his breath but it isn't all a dire ache, no. There is pleasure there, too, a heady, dizzying affection that makes it hard to fill his lungs.

He loves him. He loves him, and the function of that thought becomes recursive. He loves who James is and what he fights for. He loves how fiercely James loves his work, his country, Q himself. He loves his loyalty. He loves the way he always hugs a little too hard. He loves the way he snores at night. He loves how his briefs always sit low on his hips and he loves that he lets Peter lay on him and he loves the scent of him and the sound of him and the feel of him. Q realizes his cheeks are damp and he quickly wipes them dry.

"Did you get lost?" James calls out, his smile audible.

"No. Yes, a little," Q laughs. And he goes to join him, accepting the glass of scotch that's pressed to his hand and the kiss held to his cheek. "Should we toast?"

“To this bloody life we lead,” James offers, and Q smiles. “And to us leading it decades more once retirement creeps up on us.”

They drink, and James watches Q with narrowed eyes over the rim of his glass. Then he sets it down, brings a hand to his tie, and eyes still on his quartermaster begins to slowly pull it loose. Q swallows.

“What are you doing?”

“Keeping it fair,” Bond replies, letting his tie remain loose around his neck as he goes to the buttons next. “If I want you to parade around my home in nothing but your divine little y-fronts then I suppose I shall also have to wear little else than pants myself.”

Q sucks the scotch from his bottom lip and turns his fingers against his cheek, heating just from James' words, let alone the release of the first button. The second shortens Q's breath and he grasps James' hands in his to pause his movements.

"Let me," Q asks, smile tilting his lips crooked. "Since I'll have a week to watch your achingly slow stripteases from a continent away."

Bond purrs a note of approval and Q sets his glass aside, returning to James with both hands free. He sets them to his chest, warm beneath the sleek fabric of his shirt, and leans to brush his lips along the curve of James' jaw, stubble rasping rough against his mouth. The third button slips free and Q shivers, arching to his toes and settling again, ducking his head to drape a soft kiss against the older man's throat.

Bond rolls his shoulder, just once, a deliberately strong movement before he settles into comfort and gentleness once more. He doesn’t move to touch Q beyond how his fingertips tickle against the warm fuzz of his cardigan. He arches his neck for kisses and nuzzling, he allows his body to respond to the touches with goosebumps and the hardening of his nipples beneath talented fingers.

Q slips his hands beneath the shirt and slides it down James’ arms. Both laugh when the sleeves catch and Q presses his forehead to the scar on James’ shoulder to work the cufflinks.

It is only then that Bond moves his hands to peel the buttons free of the coffee-brown cardigan his quartermaster wears, leaving it loose before moving to the shirt beneath.

Q kisses the scar on Bond's shoulder where a bullet passed through. He kisses the scar beneath, where a broken collarbone had to be repaired. All across Bond's body lies his history, etched in pale, raised tissue, his service marked in his skin. He twists free of his cardigan as James' cufflinks fall unminded to the floor, clothes pooling around their feet.

Ducking his head, Q draws his nose through the downy hair over James' sternum. Voice infuses his sigh as his tie is tugged loose and cast aside, and Q seeks a dark nipple beneath his mouth to suckle to stiffness. Laved hard beneath his tongue, the other too is adored in similar fashion, Bond's heart so close that Q cannot help but give his softly moaning spy reprieve and lay his cheek against his chest to listen to it beat.

Q's tie is removed, unseating his glasses and fluffing his hair as Bond tugs it off over his head. Strong fingers grasp the little engineer's curls and tug just enough to scatter a shiver across his skin, the reverberations echoing deep into his belly, between his legs, and sliding Q to the floor. On his knees, he lifts his eyes and hands alike, unlatching Bond's belt and taking in the brave man who stands above him, cocky and beautiful, a soldier whose pride has been earned enough for several lifetimes, at least.

James smiles at him, cupping Q’s cheek before stroking up into his hair. He tugs there, just gently, petting him as one would a cat until Q near shivers with the pleasure of it. His fingers work blind, as he closes his eyes, to loosen the button and fly, to pull Bond’s trousers down but leave him in his pants.

Low on his hips, as always.

Dark, charcoal grey today.

Q makes a sound. James smiles and presses the flat of his thumb against his parted lips.

“Those stay on,” he reminds him. “As will yours once I get to them.”

Q tilts his head past Bond's hand with a fussy sound, but doesn't argue. Neither does he remove the scintillatingly sleek briefs that hug his agent's hips. Instead, he runs his hands up the insides of Bond's legs. His fingertips slip beneath the bottoms, teasing upward to the dark, warm crevices where his thighs join his groin, brushing through coarse curls of hair. His lips he parts against the swell of Bond's cock, mouthing along stretching fabric, sighing warmth when James' length stiffens harder in response.

He curves a kiss, leaving a sweep of dark dampness where his tongue draws hot, and catches the fabric between his teeth, eyes uplifted. Clever fingers follow whipcord muscle down powerful legs, to the suspenders that keep his socks up. Another kiss presses heat to Bond's cock, throbbing beneath his lips.

"This isn't particularly fair," Bond murmurs, voice dropping to a groan as Q snaps his socks free of their garters, and pushes each down to his ankles. "Now you're wearing far more than we agreed upon."

Q bares his teeth in a grin, the thin fabric of Bond's briefs slipping lower down his waist, and he releases it with a snap. "Shall I do that for you as well, 007?" He teases, sitting back on his heels and rising to his knees in a steady rocking motion, thumbs beneath the waistband of his trousers. "Since I'll be handling all your other needs again soon, anyway."

Bond tilts his head, eyes narrowed, and leans his weight to one side, hip cocking as he does. He crosses his arms over scarred chest and smiles.

“You know, for the number of stripteases I’ve treated you to over the months, I think you very much owe me one yourself.”

He moves past Q, hand dropping to stroke his hair again, and seats himself on the couch. He gestures, brows up and smile sly, towards the open space of his living room before the wide uncurtained windows, for Q to take his place, and returns his hand to rest his elbow to the arm of the couch, teeth against his fingertip as he waits.

Q’s mouth goes dry. Wriggling around on the floor to free himself from trousers, he can mostly manage. Distracting from his own nudity by worshipping eager attention on Bond's instead helps. He knows he's blushing because he can feel it like a sunburn across the bridge of his nose; he can feel it spread like kisses down his throat to his shoulders and chest. A glance to the window provides little comfort, in the reassurance that it is still, in fact, there and still, in fact, open to the world.

Of course, the world is far down beneath, but Q's hands are sweating anyway. He wipes them against his trouser legs and fixes his glasses on his nose as he stands.

"There's a reason you do this and I don't," Q murmurs, breath quickening just enough to draw his agent's attention down towards his chest, sides heaving softly.

"Because I'm a shameless exhibitionist?"

"Because you've got a body worth seeing," Q laughs. He tucks the sound behind his hand and hums, holding his bottom lip between his teeth. With uncertain fingers, Q reaches for the top button of his shirt, and slides it free.

James lets the tip of his tongue part his lips as he watches. Even with all the worship he has given this man, the hours spent nuzzling his skin and whispering adoration against him, Q still finds his body wanting. Still puts Bond’s up as the epitome to which he compares himself.

But he doesn't realize how beautiful his shyness is. Just how much more beautiful he is for his genuine nervousness.

As the second button, the third, slip free, James’ breath catches and he holds it. Q's hips shift, perhaps without his knowledge, in a gentle sway as though there is a tune to move to. This is not a pretentious show of skin, lurid and tawdry, but a deliberate attempt at allure.

James loves him.

He wishes he could tell Q just how much.

“Turn,” he asks him, eyes narrowing in amusement.

Q’s cheeks blossom rosy beneath his eyes and he hums to hide the smaller, weaker sound that would have crept free of his throat instead. Their eyes meet for a moment before Q’s glasses slip down his nose. He isn’t being judged. He isn’t being studied for the countless flaws he sees in himself, bugs and errors and all manner of areas in need of a rewritten code that will never come.

He is being appreciated, in spite of those things. Because of them. He is being watched with something damn near reverence, tangled with desire, and Q offers a soft smile before he turns towards the window.

Before him spreads London, the late afternoon sun pouring gold across shiny metal-and-glass structures and ancient brick alike. The Thames glitters sultry and slow in the distance. No one can see him here, as he works loose the remaining buttons of his shirt. No one can see him but Bond, as he bares his back and lets the shirt slip from his shoulders.

Q glances across his shoulder, watching from beneath a spill of wild curls as Bond watches him. Another little smile wrinkles his nose, and he curls his hips in a slow rotation to bring his belt beneath his fingers, the latch clicking as he opens it.

James laughs, that soft delighted thing he does when Peter spreads his paws against him and just barely digs his claws into his skin, the sound he makes when in the mornings Q mumbles against him and spreads his hands just the same as his cat does. There is no malice, there is no cruelty, there is nothing to suggest this is a trick.

There is only a man, this man, his agent and his lover, watching him from the couch with pleasure, dressed only in his dark underwear, getting harder just from this alone.

“You’re going to give me a run for my money,” he tells Q, watching the belt as it is slipped free and held aloft a moment before being dropped to the ground. “Tease that you are.”

“Piss off,” Q snorts, looking away again to hide his smile.

“That’s not very nice.”

“I’ve to start sharpening my tone again,” responds the quartermaster, bowing his back and presenting his hips back, just a little, as he unbuttons his trousers. “You’ve made me soft.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Bond says, watching the fabric around Q’s waist loosen. “You’re making me quite the opposite.”

Q hums amusement and dismay both, but the sound isn’t enough to mask that of his zipper lowering, trousers slipped down slowly over his ass. “Exactly why I’ve to keep you in check, 007. Can’t have you plunging ahead, discharging weapons just anywhere, can I?”

Bond curses, free hand slipping down between his legs which languidly spread as Q slides his trousers down and lets them drop to the floor before stepping out of them. Fingers work their way beneath the waistband of his pants and James palms himself, watching as Q straightens, beautiful slight form clothed only in blue y-fronts and black and grey striped socks.

Christ.

He could come right then and there.

“Will you turn back to me?” He asks instead, breathless, stroking as he watches.

The sound of his voice is like fingernails up Q’s spine, scraping shivers through his skin, rough and low and needy. He knows Bond is touching himself, there in his briefs and nothing more. He knows that he’s rigid, from the shortness of his breath, his throat snared tight. It’s intoxicating, a power that Q objectively knows he wields and has wielded before, but rarely recognized in time to grasp it.

He slips his thumbs beneath the elastic around his waist and draws it just low enough to pull a groan from his agent. And then Q turns, uncertain but playful, the waistband of his briefs gathering in the valleys of his thumbs as he takes a languid step towards Bond.

Another step, and a little lower.

Another, and a little more.

Again.

The base of his cock barely revealed above the top of his pants, amidst curls of hair, Q stands before his agent and rocks his feet wider to straddle Bond’s leg. Eyes hooded, a soft sound leaves Q as he watches Bond squeeze his cock, and a damp spot darkens his briefs where he tugs.

“At your service,” Q smiles, “007.”

Bond laughs, biting his lip and reaching out with his free hand to slip his fingers between Q’s, pulling his hand free and kissing his palm, eyes narrowed as he looks up at his quartermaster.

“Keep those on,” he reminds him, still stroking with his other hand as he pulls Q closer. He smiles when Q sets one knee between James’ own, the other on the couch beside his leg. Bond arches up, pressing Q’s hand to his lips again, parted though they are, hot breath panted against him as he watches.

“You beautiful, stubborn thing,” he whispers. “I want you to have me limping to the bloody plane tomorrow.”

Q fans his fingers across Bond’s lips, brow lifting until each is kissed in turn. He then frames James’ face with his hand, clasping his jaw, and leans low as he lifts his agent’s face to his.

“By the time the ache fades,” Q promises, “you’ll be home for me to do it again.”

“Please,” whispers Bond, their lips brushing, but not yet closing to a kiss. “Please, Q, yes.”

“And when I’ve had you, I want you to leave me just as sore.”

Bond smiles, wide enough that Q feels it against his palm, and lets his eyes close, turning his face, trusting, adoring, into the touch of his lover.

“We’ll both be bloody knackered tomorrow,” he murmurs. “Me trying not to fall asleep on the damn plane, you spread over your desk pretending you’re not dozing…”

“I won’t be dozing.”

“Mhm.”

“I’ll be hard at work and -”

“Certainly,” James agrees, “if I whisper to you that I can still taste you against my tongue, spread wide and -”

“Hush,” laughs Q, placing his palm over Bond’s mouth. The movement of his lips and the heat of his tongue shivers a moan from Q, who kisses Bond with his hand between them, smiling. “Do you want all of Q Division to hear you?”

“I told you I’m a shameless exhibitionist,” Bond answers when Q moves his hand enough to let him.

“You know I don’t joke about my work, 007. Not when I’m trying to brief you about -”

“I’d rather you debriefed me.”

Q laughs again, head falling forward as he gives in to this. To them. To James who loved him first and watches now with something like wonder in his gaze, as Q removes his glasses to rub the tears from his eyes. They kiss without Q’s hand against his mouth, lips catching softly together and twining to lead their bodies into the same writhing movements, laying long across the couch.


	17. If Statement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _They have months more after Bogota._
> 
> _They have years, if they’re lucky, before James can retire, and many more after he does._
> 
> _He does not think of the assignment he will go to after Bogota, the one M doesn’t know of, the one Q doesn’t know of, the one he shouldn’t know of._
> 
> _He doesn’t think of anything but the filthy sounds against his skin, the tightness of his muscles, the desperate need that aches through him like fire in his belly._

James’ hand is guided from his own pants into Q’s and he dutifully strokes there as he kisses the younger man pressing atop him. He kisses the salt from his cheeks, laughs when Q’s lips spread so wide in a smile that they can’t kiss anymore. In turn he guides Q’s hand into his own pants and arches up with a moan to allow his throat to be kissed as his pulse speeds.

They could spend hours like this, just touching, just rubbing together and teasing until both were sweaty and slippery and so horny they wouldn’t even make it to bed.

James allows his other hand to slip into Q’s pants as well, sliding around the back to rub there, too.

“Oh,” Q sighs, just a little sound but one that curls up through the length of his body, tightening his fingers around Bond’s cock and squeezing their kiss together again. Slow strokes and slower circling of opening match the shared rhythm of their bodies, pulse and heartbeat, breath and kisses, the whisper of skin against skin as their chests and stomachs and legs sweep softly together.

“Let me taste you,” murmurs Bond, and Q grins against his mouth, nose wrinkling as he shakes his head.

“Not yet. No. Yes, but no. You know what’ll happen if you do.”

“You’ll climax beautifully all against my sofa?”

“Yes,” laughs Q. “There’s - ah,” he gasps, as a second finger joins the first and stretches tender, gathered skin. “There’s an order of operations, James, to ensure - oh - that both our goals are achieved. I finish too fast,” he apologizes, before it’s kissed firmly away by his agent, and Q squirms against him with a whimper.

“I love that you do,” Bond purrs against him, and Q’s cock twitches hard in his hand, his entire body trembles with need. Despite wanting to push, wanting to play and feel Q make a mess of himself, James lets him go, both hands slipping from beneath the soft cotton and moving to rest above his head, and over the arm of the sofa.

He raises his brow at Q and draws his bottom lip between his teeth.

Q regards him, as for a moment their amorous rutting stills. He blinks, lips parting in uncharacteristic surprise. “Do you really?”

James blinks back, smile spreading slow across his lips.

“I’d call you on your bloody bluff but you’re not bluffing, you genuinely don’t know,” he sighs. Q’s brows furrow a little and Bond grunts, slipping further beneath him. “I think it is so beautiful that you let yourself feel so openly as to let yourself break. No shame, no problems. You enjoy something and you show it. It’s enviable. And I love it,” he grins. “Very, very much.”

Q’s eyes lift in their corners. His nose wrinkles as he shakes his head, but his smile doesn’t fade. Not when he tastes the genuine, gentle words from his agent with a kiss. Not when he turns his body over Bond’s to lay flat against him and feel their hearts beat together. Not when he begins to slip lower, and mark a path down his agent’s body with heating kisses.

“You’ll know I’ve become too accustomed to you when it takes longer than a minute and a half,” Q murmurs, grinning against Bond’s belly when he laughs.

“More to look forward to, then.”

“I do enjoy it,” Q says, drawing his nose along the trail of hair that thickens as it runs lower. “I enjoy you.” Slender fingers finally bring low the waistband of his briefs, to bare Bond’s cock and allow it freedom to lay full and flushed against his stomach. Q’s eyes lift, as he whispers against its twitching shaft. “Let me show it.”

Bond just groans, head dropping back in utter submission even before Q’s lips press to hot skin. Q undoes him entirely, be it with a touch, a breath, a well-placed word and his dry humor. Even the thought of him, sleepy with hair a mess and glasses askew, put together and beautiful for dinner, casual in his sweaters and cat fur and his Scrabble mug filled with Earl Grey…

He loves him.

James moans, lips parted wide and one hand tugging his own hair as Q takes him into his mouth.

He loves him so much.

Q skims Bond’s pants lower as he takes him deep, lips curving inward, outward again as he lifts his head, leaving Bond’s cock glistening and warm. Slow bobbing strokes of lips and tongue and a little bit of teeth, and firm sucking between hollowed cheeks, lift his agent’s hips from the couch in lazy thrusts. He does this because he desires it. He does it because James desires it. He does it because the feeling of his lover’s cock filling his mouth, thick and heavy and hot, is as much a pleasure as anything James does for him. Carnal and instinctive and raw and real, the need to bond this way, to mate and inseminate and join together as one, it speaks to a deeper place than the surface-level functions that define Q’s life. It speaks to his nature, the core of his altogether too-human being, primal instincts pulled up from a place of ancient evolution.

Not to mention it’s bloody beautiful to watch a man like Bond come so undone. Hand in his hair, lips parted slack, he watches Q with a heavy-lidded gaze that forces Q to slip a hand between his legs just to hold himself at bay. He hums, the sensation resonant enough to clench James’ perfect stomach into marked muscular ridges.

And then, freeing his mouth with a wry smile and a thumb against his chin to wipe away the spit, Q goes lower still.

Bond has always been an entirely open lover. With his responses, with what he gives. He enjoys making his pleasure heard when it is given him. He enjoys leaving marks on his lover so they know how good it felt. He enjoys finding marks left on himself to touch later. He is an incredibly sexual man, in every possible way.

And with Q…

“God, Q -”

Held fast by his own underwear, he can hardly spread his legs in pleasure but he does valiantly try.

“Taken captive in your own home?” Q laughs, the heat of it against the join of Bond’s thigh bringing the man to writhing again. “This doesn’t bode well at all, 007.”

He touches a kiss to James’ taut thigh and slips his briefs lower, to his knees, and finally off, laughing as he slumps to the other arm of the couch. For a moment, he watches his agent, laid bare and beautiful before him. He is honed muscle and earned scars, pale swaths of hair and rounding edges where his age has started to soften sharp corners. Q’s smile widens at this, in particular; he thinks of how they will appear in retirement, greying and gentled, together.

Always together.

“Have I stunned you to silence?” Bond asks, and it’s enough to startle Q from his reverie and narrow his eyes.

“With your pallor, perhaps. Too long in England - you’ve lost your tan,” Q chides him, shifting to his knees again and spreading them behind himself, as he slips to his belly and noses against James’ balls, to coax his legs wider with eager lips and hot tongue.

“I’ll be sure to get a tan,” James manages, voice barely steady, body far from it as he hooks one foot up over the back of the couch, drops the other to press his toes to the cool tile floor. He is spread and wanton, entirely submissive to the lovely smaller man between his legs.

He can feel his muscles clench and twitch, relax and shiver as Q touches him, kisses him, nuzzles him.

Carefully, so as not to upend either of them from the sofa, James drops one hand to hold Q gently at bay and folds his legs so he can turn himself over, kneeling on the couch, hips raised and thighs spread, head pressing to the arm rest with a groan. He slips one hand between his legs to stroke himself so Q can see.

Q sees. He sees his lover’s body arching beautifully for him. He sees him presenting himself entirely, unashamed and eager. Heavy balls with soft wrinkled skin and a thick cock caught between calloused fingers, plush cheeks parted down the center and oh, Q could come without laying a hand on himself just watching this.

He tries to swallow the whimper that ripples upward from the tightness between his legs, and fails. Bond laughs low at the sound.

His voice plummets to a groan as Q sucks a wet kiss against his opening. Hands pressed firm to his ass to hold him spread, tongue sweeping wide and plunging deep, Q’s heart shudders and his body aches, a wonderful pain, to feel James melt beneath his touch.

Every time, this undoes James to the point of madness. The pleasure is so intense, and so deep and achingly good that he can barely breathe. He reminds himself that he promised to make as big a mess of Q as Q would of him. He reminds himself that should he fail now, they have hours yet until evening, hours more until morning pulls them apart.

They have months more after Bogota.

They have years, if they’re lucky, before James can retire, and many more after he does.

He does not think of the assignment he will go to after Bogota, the one M doesn’t know of, the one Q doesn’t know of, the one he shouldn’t know of.

He doesn’t think of anything but the filthy sounds against his skin, the tightness of his muscles, the desperate need that aches through him like fire in his belly.

“Q,” he whimpers, biting down against the leather. “Come on…”

Q moans against him, the plea nearly enough to ruin him. He brushes a kiss against the clenching muscle beneath his lips and spits silently into his palm to slick himself, working his briefs to his thighs with the other hand. He hardly touches himself; he’s leaking already as it is. His cock throbs hot in his hand and he grasps it firm, shifting forward over Bond’s back to align himself.

Their voices break together. Pain and pleasure, catharsis and the relief that follows. James asked to feel it, to ache from it, to limp with twitching muscles and he will touch himself when he is alone and feel the physical confirmation of their joining.

Q bucks his hips to mount Bond hard, groaning between his shoulderblades from the friction of it. Heat swallows him whole, undulations of pressure tugging him deeper, holding him fast until he’s sunk inside his agent as far as he can. Q’s throat clicks when he swallows.

He touches a kiss to the back of Bond’s neck.

He whispers, recalling his words from before, that it will always be like this.

He cannot allow himself to believe anything else.

Rough hands slip against the couch and down to the ground, scrambling for purchase they can barely reach. It pulls all manner of pleasure and pain from the agent to be taken this way, as much physical as emotional.

The Bogota job will be quick, yes, but the other? Based on nothing more than a tape left at his apartment - this apartment - not a week before. A request for trust that involves no one else. Information cryptic enough that should it fall to the wrong hands it will not be understood.

The official work, the work that separates him from Q, that has him talking to his quartermaster through coms only, if even that - that work Bond can forgive. That work they both signed up for. But this…

He reaches back to clutch at Q, moaning his name, demanding more with a laugh.

Should this other job be successful - one final assignment from a woman he holds still in the highest regard - and should he return alive, James considers it his preemptive retirement.

A promise to Q, without words, that after this they will be safe together.

Bond’s fingers in wild curls tug firm and Q moans shuddering against his shoulder. His lips bend to suck a mark against scarred skin, strong muscles, the familiar body beneath - around - his own. It is less a claim laid than a gift given, a place that James can touch and remember, a blossoming pale bruise to remind him that he is wanted home again, to a place where he is loved and cherished by his quartermaster.

Q’s knees dig into the slick leather couch; his hips jerk erratic. Unsteady thrusts waver, weaken, strength, shove with the soft smack of skin against skin, until the tide rushes dizzying through Q and he presses his teeth to James’ shoulder with a long, groan. His cock twitches release, spilling hot and thick, buried so deep in him that Bond can feel Q’s balls draw tight and firm against his body. Little bucks of involuntary movement plant his seed and Q shudders in undulating waves, ass clenching, knees slipping, hands grasping numb against Bond’s arm, his chest, as finally his pleasure ebbs enough to allow him a shaking, heady gasp.

He will ache. They both will, in body and spirit, as the distance between the former snares tight the latter. Every moment apart will wound them. It always does. Every moment apart will bring them closer to this healing again. It always does.

Always.

Always.

Q kisses clumsy over Bond’s back until his agent twists and Q’s cock slides free. James goes to his back and Q lays lax atop him, tingling fingers stroking James’ heart to settling, kisses catching smiling against the other’s mouth. The little engineer shivers when his hair is stroked from his face, and he chases Bond’s hand with more kisses, still, against fingertips and palm, wrist and veined forearm.

Bond’s cock leaves a trail of slick against Q’s stomach when he rubs it upward, and Q’s nose wrinkles in a drowsy grin.

“Take me to bed?”

Bond hums, nosing warm against the side of Q’s face, body throbbing from their lovemaking, cock aching for release. He moves lazily, not the quick and honed movements of the spy but the lazy stretching of the lover.

Gathering Q in his arms, he stands with a hiss, a groan and a laugh as he winces. It feels good. So damn good. They will both be a mess after this, need a shower, take one, spend the rest of the day in their underwear like children, eating Q's cereal from a large bowl with two spoons and laughing about it.

This is what he will cherish as the plane taxis for takeoff. This is what he will remember when he lies to Q about why he has to be in Mexico right after the Bogota job.

This.

The warm kiss Q presses to his lips, the lazy smiles, the yelp that inevitably escapes him when James tosses him to the bed.

This.

Each other.

Always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You didn't think we'd just end it there, did you? ;) Stay tuned and subscribe to both/either of us for the next part of this series, Checkpoint, starting Monday!


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